FT 

MEADE 


4LB THE 

991 



REV. C. O.' BROWN, D. D. 


THE POPE OF ROME TO THK CIVILIZED WORLD: 

“Public Schools, open to qll children, should be under the control of 
the Roman church and should not be subject to the civil power.” 

VICTOR HITOO TO THE ROMISH HIERARCHY: 

“You want us to give you the people to instruct. Very well. Let us 
see your pupils. Let us see those you have produced. What have you 
done for Italy? What have you done for Spain? Italy, which taught 
mankind to read, now knows not howto read. Yes! Italy is, of all the 
states of Europe, that where the smallest number know how to read. 
Spain, thanks to you, rests under a yoke of stupor, which is a yoke of 
degradation and decay. Spain has lost the power it obtained from 
the Romans, the genius of art it had from the Arabs, the world 
(America) it had from God; and in exchange for all that you have made 
it lose, it has received from you the Inquisition.” 

GENERAL GRANT TO THE UNITED STATES: 

“If we are to have another contest in the near future, * * I pre- 
dict that the dividing line will not be Mason and Dixon’s; but it will be 
between patriotism and intelligence on the one side, and superstition and 
ignorance on the other. * * Encourage free schools and resolve that 
not one dollar appropriated to them shall be applied to the support of any 
sectarian school.” 





Entered according to .act of Congress, in the year 1890, by C 
Brown, in the office of the Librarian of Congress, 
at Washington. 


THE 

PUBLIC SCHOOLS 


AND 


THEIR FOES, 


261890 \/ 

2 - 3 /' 


IT IS TIME FOR AMERICANS TO AWAKE! 


BY 


Rev. CEO. Brown, D. D. 


The Pope says : “The Roman Church has the right, to interfere in the discipline of 
public schools * * Public schools should be under the control of the Roman Church.” 

Bishop Rosecrans says: “The faithful are required * * * to break down these 
[public] schools.” 

Priest Hecker says: “There is ere long to be a State religion in this country and 
and that State religion is to be Roman Catholic.” 

Lafayette said : “If the liberties of the American people are ever destroyed they 
will fall by the hands of the Romish clergy ” 


DUBUQUE! 

The Times Co., Printers, 
1890. 


PREFACE. 


The following recent addresses were first published from week to 
week in “The Dubuque Daily Times.' 1 The demand for their publication 
in the present form comes from the large audiences that first heard them 
and from many other persons who realize the present importance of the 
theme. 

The time has fully come when Romish aggressions upon the free 
schools of our land must be met by voice and press. The duty is not a 
pleasant one, especially to those living in a community where a strong 
Catholic sentiment prevails; but where, on that very account, the facts 
upon which judgment must be based are most open to observation. The 
one who undertakes to examine the facts, as I have done, is at once ac- 
cused of “attacking the Catholic church.” In the same manner the Com- 
mander of Fort Sumter “attacked” Charleston, when his guns replied to 
those of Beauregard. Rome long ago made it impossible for any lover of 
the public schools to become an aggressor. 

The growing boldness of Romish threats and the increasing distinct- 
ness of Romish designs upon our schools, leave no alternative to one who, 
loving his country, has been compelled for years to observe how papal 
utterances are interpreted where Catholic sentiment is strong enough to 
remove a part of the concealment. My fifth address sets forth some of 
the facts in reference to that influence here. We are often told, as I 
have been since I began this series of addresses, that many thousands of 
Catholics were loyal to our flag during the war — a fact to which I bear 
willing and personal testimony. But this is not a question concerning the 
attitude of the masses of the Catholic laity, but of the Romish authorities, 
by whom the laity are being led whither they scarcely know. And in 
this connection it is worth while to remember that the Pope of Rome 
who was then both an ecclesiastical and a temporal sovereign was the 
only power that recognized the Southern confederacy. (Mulford's “The 
Nation” p. 375.) As a people we are,but just awaking to the great issue 
which is at the threshold — an issue which under the guise of demand- 
ing school-funds, really involves the whole question of union between 
church and state, the integrity of our constitution and the perpetuity of 
our liberties. The gravity of the issue is, I fear, but dimly apprehended 
by those who live in communities where overwhelming Protestant in- 
fluence compels the disguising of Romish motives. In my lectures I 
have attempted but little more than to bring papal utterances into the 
light of facts which abound in this vicinity. I am under great obligations 
to Rev. I. J. Lansing, whose book “Romanism and the Republic” should 
be read by every American freeman; also to Rev. Josiah Strong’s “Our 
Country,” to Gladstone’s “Vatican Decrees,” Dorchester’s “Problem of 
Religious Progress,” also to the publications of the Boston “Committee of 
One Hundred.” Of Catholic authorities, I have had reference to “Judges 
of Faith or Christian vs. Godless Schools,” by Thomas Jenkin’s, a 
collection of utterances by leading Catholic officials; “Plain Talks about 
the Protestantism of To-day” by Mgr. Segur; and Butler’s Catholic 
Catechism. 

Charles O. Brown. 


Dubuque, Iowa, June, 1890. 


FIRST ADDRESS. 


The Contest. Our Schools. Specific Illustration. 


In 1876 Hon. John G. Baird, Secretary of the Connecticut State 
Board of Education, in closing an article on the Common School System 
of the United States made use of these words , “Surely, the earnestly 
religions part of the people who are the firmest friends of the public schools 
cannot consent to the total banishment of moral training. * * A severe 
struggle upon this point is one of the possibilities of the near future.” 
The struggle which Mr. Baird foresaw came almost immediately 
with the result, as you know, of modifying the practice of a large propor- 
tion of the common schools of the land, in reference to the religious ex- 
ercises with which they had been opened. 

The discussion has advanced at a rate almost revolutionary to a 
point far beyond that. The struggle is no longer for or against the Bible 
in the schools merely. That is only one of the questions today. The 
main question now relates to matters which involve the integrity and 
continued existence of the common schools. An organized and power- 
ful foe to the whole system has risen up and boldly proclaims its inten- 
tion to destroy it. To this end all of the machinery of a powerful Church 
is to be evoked. Its representatives in every part of our land are already 
under orders. Its adherents, numbering millions, have been admonished; 
millions of children are to be withdrawn from the public schools and sent 
to those af a rival system, under the control of this ecclesiastical hier- 
archy. A division of the public school money is to be demanded. Thus 
the public schools are to be weakened, until in places their buildings 
shall be deserted and offered for sale, with the certainty that a purchaser 
will be at hand. Indeed it is scarcely necessary to speak of these things 
as any longer future. The movement began long ago and has proceeded 
quietly but steadily, until hundreds of thousands of children are already 
gathered in the schools of the antagonistic system. 

It becomes manifest thetefore that, much as we deprecate contro- 
versy, the struggle is upon us and must be met. It has been forced upon 
us by the persistent attacks upon a system that is dear to a very large 
majority of the American people. The friends of the public school sys- 
tem are not responsible for this discussion. For the most part they have 
been silent and permitted aggression to go on, in the hope that the mat- 
ter would right itself. They have vainly hoped that better counsels 
would presently control the foes of our schools. They have hoped that 
broad views of patriotism, that love for the common flag and the manifest 
need of enlightenment among a self-governing people, would presently 


4 


• THE CLICK OF A TRIGGER. ’ 


silence the opposition or rob it of its power;but recent events, the results 
of along course, compel us to see our mistake. The discussion in Boston, 
the decision of the Supreme Court of Wisconsin and recent political con- 
tests over this question in the same State, are only incidents of a strug- 
gle whose lines are being drawn from sea to sea. We are left with no 
room to doubt the intentions of the Romish church. When Monsignor 
Capel, a very distinguished Roman Catholic, was in this country not 
long ago, making his tour of observation and speaking from time to time 
he let fall some very bold and significant utterances. Among other 
things he said: “I am pursuing a careful study of your whole school sys- 
tem. The result is there is going to be a fight. There are a good many 
Catholics in this country. * * Your school system is inadequate for 
them and they are going to leave it. Suppose the Church should send 
out a command to state schools in every parish to establish and support 
parochial schools and send all Catholics to them * * It can be done 
by the utterance of a word as sharp as the click of a trigger.” Halt a 
moment. This country has never taken kindly to threats which come 
•dike the click of a trigger.” It has always been a bad business for those 
who “click the trigger” at this government or its institutions. But he 
goes on, saying, “That command will be obeyed; new schools will spring 
up everywhere. What will be the result of that? A fight. If it is not 
a downright fight, it will be at least the warlike condition, a million or 
two of voting, taxpaying citizens warlike to the government.” (“Rom- 
anism and the Republic.”) There is only one organization in this coun- 
try whose representatives have ever talked like that in reference to our 
public schools. 

The utterances at the Baltimore Centennial, last November following 
so closely upon those of Monsignor Capel are exceedingly significant. 
Judge E. F. Dunne in his paper on Education utters his demand for a 
share of the public school money on the plea of “justice” in these words: 
“The state which demands education, which collects money by public 
tax, and pays that money out for teaching, must pay equally all who 
teach. How dare it discriminate?” That is, it must not only pay its 
public school teachers who are doing their legitimate work of imparting 
science and history; but must in addition pay those who devote a large 
part of their time to teaching the mysteries of the Romish faith. Fol- 
lowing the Baltimore Congress we have a movement all along the line in 
the direction indicated by Monsignor Capel and Judge Dunne. In 
various parts of the land the word “sharp as the click of a trigger” is 
heard. Bishops tell their assembled priests that they must go home and 
organize parochial schools; that “no further delay will be tolerated. ” 
Meanwhile the demand for a share of the public school money grows 


A AVAR OF SYSTEMS. 


5 


louder, and louder becomes the cry that our * ‘public schools are infidel 
and godless and must therefore be avoided.” Here then is the plainly 
declared purpose to break down or pervert our public school system. 
We must be no longer silent. We must meet it fairly, openly, firmly; 
not opposing prejudice to prejudice, nor malice to denunciation, but 
setting forth the facts which appeal on one side to the love for our 
common liberties and which on the other utter their warning against a 
system which proposes to mold the schools of this country to the will of 
an Italian pope. This is no contest of our seeking. It is no merely 
personal matter. It is a war of one system against another. These 
persons who hold the opposite view are our friends and neighbors. We 
honor them as such. But we cannot sit silently by while they push their 
scheme for the overthrow of our schools. We are American citizens. 
We live in the land of priceless liberties. We live under the rod of no 
despot. We live under the gentle sway of institutions which have been 
created by the popular voice, which are supported by the popular will 
and which depend for their perpetuity upon the popular intelligence. 
Such a government must have schools, where the intelligence, which is 
its bulwark, can be acquired. It must have schools where love for its 
liberties shall be inculcated rather than respect for the will of a 
foreign ecclesiestical power. It cannot delegate the work of providing 
schools to any secondary agency. A duty so sacred to the liberties of 
the state and so essential to its very life, must remain under its own 
control and breathe its own spirit. 

Having said so much in general introduction to what I propose to 
say on this whole subject, we may now proceed to some specific facts 
which are at our very doors. Thanks to the wise policy which has always 
prevailed in the Northern States of this Nation, and which, since the 
war, has been adopted by the Southern States, we may find our illustra- 
tions of the public schools and their workings in every city and village 
and in thousands of country places throughout the land. When it is 
said that the public schools are “godless,” that “they are nurseries of 
infidelity and vice,” we can go a few blocks from our own doors and in- 
quire into the facts. We can institute our inquiry concerning the 
character of our school teachers, concerning the nature and quality of 
their teaching, concerning the order of their schools and the results as 
seen in their pupils. 

Now what are the facts concerning the public schools of this City? 
Any inquiry into the facts ought to proceed from the specific to the gen- 
eral. Let us therefore look into the facts pertaining to the public schools 
of this City, and ascertain if the serious charges made against public 
schools in general will apply here. When we have ascertained the facts 


6 


THE SCHOOLS OF ONE CITY. 


as they exist here, we may profitably broaden our inquiry to the wider 
field, and see if the main facts as we find them here will apply to the 
public schools of the country at large. 

We find then that we have a school population of nearly eleven 
thousand— that is of persons between the ages of five and twenty-one. 
The exact number at the time the school census was taken last year was 
10,615. Theoretically the school age continues to twenty-one years; but 
practically it ceases at eighteen. We must therefore cut off 
from our eleven thousand a considerable number probably not less than 
3,000 to allow for this fact, leaving about 8,000 children and youth whose 
attendance at the public schools ought to be expected. But this number 
is still further reduced by the fact that nearly seven hundred, between 
the ages of 8 and 16 inclusive, are employed in shops, stores and factories. 
It is found that the total number of this age not in any school was 818 — 
probably fully a thousand if we enlarge the limit to eighteen years. 
There remain about seven thousand whom we should still expect to find 
in our public schools. The actual enrollment for last year was 4,471. 
This leaves about 2,500 to be accounted for by the parochial schools of 
the City. I do not affirm that the parochial schools of this City enrolled 
that number of pupils. I only affirm, that, after all allowances have 
been made there remain 2,500 of reasonable school age who are not en- 
rolled in the public schools. The two largest parochial schools of the 
City have nearly 500 pupils each. 

To care for its school population the City has erected eleven buildings, 
all brick structures but one. with a total of 84 rooms. In addition one 
or two of the ward buildings are so crowded that rooms in neigboring 
buildings are rented. These various schools are in charge of 92 teach- 
ers of whom 19 are principals and assistant principals. Of these 92 
teachers I find that 81 were educated in these same public schools of 
Dubuque, of which they are now the instructors. Eight of the twelve 
principals were educated in the Dubuque schools. These are facts 
worthy of especial note in passing and to which I shall presently return 
for further comment, in another connection. 

These teachers received for their services last month $4,635.00 at 
which rate the year’s pay roll would give an aggregate of $46,350.00; but 
the aggregate will, in fact, be somewhat less because the number of 
teachers was larger last month than at the opening of the year. Of the 
total amount expended on our schools $33,000.00 came by district tax, 
and $10,471.68 from the State apportionment. Putting these facts to- 
gether we make a most interesting discovery, namely, more money is 
actually paid to the 81 teachers who were educated here in Dubuque 
than the total amount raised by taxation. Surely such a large expendit- 


WHAT IS DONE IN THEM? 


7 


ure ought to provide something better than “godless and atheistic” 
schools, something better than “hot beds of infidelity, immorality and 
crime.” All of these terms have been applied to the public schools by 
their enemies. In these days when competent and moral teachers can 
surely be had, it would be strange indeed if the school board of this City 
should employ only such as wrnild devote themselves to making our 
schools “nurseries of vice and immorality.” It would be strange indeed 
if with so wide a field to select from, and at so large an expenditure of 
money, they did not find teachers whose work among their pupils and 
whose influence over them would prevent such deplorable results. 

But we will not trust to such inferences. We will submit only to 
the facts which appear upon investigation. A school may be judged in 
two ways: By its present appearance and by its results as seen in its 
pupils after they have gone forth from it. Let us pursue either or both 
of these methods of investigation. Let us first visit the schools. This 
is a thing which parents and tax-payers ought, far more generally, to do. 
I am firmly of the opinion, that if parents were in the habit of visiting 
the public schools and informing themselves on the state of thing actu- 
ally existing there, they could neither be persuaded nor driven, there- 
after, to pay for the support of other schools. 

We enter any one of these schools, unannounced and wholly unex- 
pected. We find the pupils and teachers attending quietly to their 
duties. We are courteously welcomed and the regular order proceeds. 
We are not annoyed by any embarrassing conduct on the part of the 
pupils. The atmosphere of the place is that of order and good morals. 
We are not impressed that this is the place where these children are to 
learn anything wrong in morals or detrimental to true religion. The 
recitations proceed. The usual elements of a common school education 
appear in the different studies. The children are taught the principles 
of mathematics, the facts of geography and the structure of language. 
Surely there is nothing godless or immoral in all of this. On the contrary, 
most salutary lessons, inculcating good morals, strict honesty, untar- 
nished virtue, the rewards of right living, and reverence for the Creator 
appear from time to time, and in such a way as to be absolutely unsec- 
tarian. As we pass on to the higher grades we are in the atmosphere of 
facts which give us a broader outlook upon the fields of literature and 
modern science. We hear the tramp of Ceaser’s victorious legions; the 
thunder of Ciciro’s eloquent arraingment of Cataline, or the melody of 
Virgil’s faultless verse. We hear our youth explaining the laws of heat 
and electricity; we behold them in the laboratory test-tube in hand per- 
forming experiments in modern chemistry, feeling their way amid the 
mysteries of nature to the solid ground of nature’s laws; we hear them 


ABE THEY “HOTBEDS OF TICE?” 


rehearsing the facts of our Nation’s history and the constitutional proced- 
ure of our civil government— facts which, absolutely untainted with 
anything sectarian or partisan, are the ground work of intelligent citi- 
zenship and a worthy patriotism. Is there anything godless or immoral 
about all this? Meanwhile no word is spoken or allowed by either 
teacher or pupil, which could in any wise be construed as an attack 
upon religion or morals. The facts are taught in every department and 
left to do their own work of forming opinion and judgment. If any re- 
ligious sect or church has been unfortunate in the facts of its past 
history, neither teacher nor pupil can go into the business of mending or 
suppressing the facts. There are some facts in the early history of this 
country concerning the persecution of helpless people called “witches” 
which Congregational] sts would be glad to forget. But history cannot 
ignore them. There are other facts connected with Tetzel and with St. 
Bartholomew’s Day which Catholics would like to forget. But history 
must not forget. Truth is truth and our children must learn the truth. 
Is that godless? Is that immoral? 

If our schools are nurseries of immorality, we should expect to find 
the evidence very apparent by the time that we reach the High School, 
for no pupil can take his iflace there without years of this “immoral” 
training. But he who enters our high school building expecting to find 
a “godless and immoral” set of young people will surely be surprised. 
The air of gentle courtesy and refinement which prevails there could 
never arise from years of “immoral” training. It would not be possible 
for two hundred young people who had spent a good share of their lives 
in schools which were “hotbeds of vice” to manifest the bearing and 
conduct which prevail in our High School. Their bearing is that of 
young persons who have learned obedience and sincerity and virtue. 
And this is the more noticeable since they are not under the bondage of 
a cast iron law. The large room is full of young people, but you may be 
among them hours and hear no word of rebuke from the principal, and 
see no occasion for such a word. They move as those who have learned 
that great and necessary principle among free people of law in liberty. 
As to their being “godless” you notice that a considerable number of 
them are members of the various churches and most of them are allied 
in one relation or another to the religious influences of the City. If there 
can be found anywhere, in any parochial school an equal number, who 
manifest as many traits of a moral and essentially religious training, 
surely., no good citizen will say they have been brought up in “hotbeds of 
vice.” 

But there is in the public schools of this City a more emphatic testi- 
mony to the fact that they are not nurseries of atheism or immorality. 


THIRTY-THREE CATHOLIC TEACHERS. 


9 


We noted a little while ago that eiglity-one of the teachers— eight- 
ninths of them, were trained in these same schools. What was the effect of 
the schools on their characters? Did they lose either their religion or 
their morals during their long attendance upon these schools? Let us 
see. I have not pursued my inquiry especially with reference to the 
eighty-one, but they constitute so large a part that the result would not 
be greatly affected by the remaining one-ninth. Of the ninety-two 
teachers, eight are Universalists, twelve are Presbyterians, seven are 
Methodists, two are Baptists, two are members of the Christian church, 
eight are Episcopleans, ten are Congregationalists, several are Luther- 
ans and thirty-three are Catholics, while a very few are not allied to any 
church. This statement might be modified slightly by further inquiry, 
but it is not far from correct. 

Here therefore are conspicuous illustrations of those who for a period 
of years have been under the influence of our public schools. Does this 
list look as if the tendency of our schools were to atheism or immorality? 
If our schools are godless and immoral, how comes it that these per- 
sons could spend years in them and not lose their religion? 

But the charge is not brought by Methodists or Baptists, Pesbyter- 
ians or Congregationalists that our schools are godless. That charge 
comes alone from the authorities of the Catholic church. How comes it 
then I would ask that these thirty or more Catholic teachers succeeded 
in getting through our schools without losing their religion? 

But I must press the inquiry further. If our schools are godless it 
is of course because of the influence exerted by the teachers. But one- 
third of the teaching force is today composed of members of the Catholic 
church, and it has been oftener the case that they have been still more 
largely represented. Would the authorities of that church charge that 
their own members have made our schools g odless and immoral? We 
do not believe that these schools are g odless and immoral. But the 
authorities of the Church of Rome seem to be in the strange attitude of 
accusing their own members, who are teachers in our schools, of making 
the schools godless and immoral. Is it not very strange that this charge 
comes from that church which has nearly three times as many members 
on the teaching force as any other, and which has at times had a half of 
that force in its communion? We do not believe that these teachers are 
either godless or immoral, or that they teach godless or immoral 
schools. We do not believe that the members of the Protestant church- 
es who are teachers, are godless and immoral. We do not believe that 
the tendency of their teaching is to atheism or vice. 

But we must press our inquiry a step further: If, as the Catholic 
authorities say, these schools are godless and immoral, and if they are 


10 


THE TEACHERS MAY STAY. 


* 

unfit places for Catholic children so that the Catholic children mnst be 
ordered out of them, how about the Catholic teachers? Are these god- 
less and immoral schools fit places for so many Catholic teachers? Will 
the bishop order them to escape from this immoral atmosphere for fear 
of its contagious influence on their souls? The teachers are largely 
young people who ought not to be subject to godless or immoral influences, 
but I have seen no where any order from any Roman authority compell- 
ing Catholic teachers to abandon the immoral public schools. Until this 
is done, the movement away from the public schools would seem to lack 
that completeness and symmetry which should characterize the aban- 
donment of an evil thing. We do not believe that the bishop will order 
these teachers ts cease drawing thousands of dollars of public money and 
leave the public schools; but as long as he does not we shall not believe 
that he really thinks the public schools to be wholly evil and nurseries of 
impiety. Americans are justly proud of their public school system. It 
was planted by the fathers side by side with the church. It has grown 
to mighty proportions and produced the noblest results. It has been 
the nursery of good morals, the inspiration of patriotism, the cause of 
wise and intelligent citizenship and the bulwark of liberty. We are 
jealous of its good name; we shall plan for its grander future, and shall 
be no longer silent when it is assailed. 


SECOND ADDRESS. 


The Calumny that Our Schools are “Nurseries of Vice and 
Infidelity” Refuted. 


A week ago we examined some facts in reference to the public 
schools of this city. We enquired whether the facts at our doors war- 
rant the assertion of their foes, that they are “nurseries of vice and 
infidelity.” We concluded that the facts, as we find them here, are all 
against such a statement. We concluded further that such a charge 
from the authorities of the church of Rome in this locality, would cer- 
tainly react, inasmuch as more than one-third of the teaching force is 
composed of members of that communion. 

This evening we will broaden our view to glance at the public school 
system of the country at large. The public school idea, like so many 
other great and good things, came into the world with the Reformation. 
Prior to that time all education had been controlled by the Church. But 
in the separation of tilings temporal and spiritual— civil and religious, 
which then began, it was immediately and clearly seen that there must 
be free schools under the charge of the State rather than the Church. 
The mental awakening of that mighty epoch grasped the thought at 
once. In 1527 a free school system was established in Saxony. Other 
German states followed. But the confusion of the various and long 
continued wars which rent the German states, during the struggle which 
Protestantism was obliged to wage for its life, prevented the early 
development of free schools there. Switzerland also contributed an inter- 
esting chapter to this early history of the free school idea which can only 
be referred to, at this time. 

But it was not ’till that idea was transplanted to the free soil of 
America that it took root for an immediate and prosperous growth. 
That idea came to America with those who represented freedom of 
thought in religion and government. They organized their protest 
against civil and ecclesiastical tyranny in the cabin of the Mayflower. 
Upon their landing, almost immediately they t t up the school house. In 
every new community, as settlements grew, the log school house was 
built — the earliest representative on American soil of that mighty system 
which now has its massive and often elegant structures, in every city, 
and its more modest buildings in country districts throughout the land; 
that system which has given the United States a front rank among the 
most intelligent nations of the earth. It is important to notice that the 
common school came to this land with the Pilgrim and the Puritan 


12 


THE ORIGIN OF PUBLIC SCHOOLS. 


rather than the Cavalier. New England, among the earliest acts of her 
colonies, taxed herself to support her common schools and passed laws 
in their favor. Colonies further south were opposed to schools. Gover- 
nor Berkeley, of Virginia, wrote in 1670: “I thank God there are no free 
schools, nor printing, and I hope we shall not have them these hundred 
years. God keep us from both!” On the contrary listen to one of the 
colonial laws of New England: “To the end, that all learning may not 
be buried in the grave of our fathers, ordered: That every township, 
after that the Lord hath increased them to fifty householders, shall ap- 
point one to teach all the children to read and write; and where any 
town shall increase to the number of one hundred families, they shall 
set up a grammar school, the master thereof being able to instruct youth 
so far as to fit them for the university.” 

The system thus early planted in New England soil, has become 
national. The South, for centuries hampered by a social system which 
forbade enlightenment to half of its people, too long cherished the spirit 
of Governor Berkeley. But the South is now in line and its expenditure 
for free schools runs into the millions annually. 

Such was the beginning of our free school system. It arose from an 
early perception of two facts: first free people must be enlightened and 
can remain free only as long as they are intelligent; second, the State 
must insure this intelligence by controlling its own schools. Whenever 
it ceases to control, then it will lose its guaranty that the intelligence, 
necessary to its life, will be imparted. That moment the schools will 
cease to be free. That moment we cease to be assured that the spirit 
and love of freedom will be taught in them. Let it be understood we 
shall never surrender such precious rights to any foreign pope. We 
shall never rob our children of such priceless privileges. The American 
flag is dearer to us than any ecclesiastical establishment. Our schools 
must continue in a control which will teach the children to love our flag. 
We must train them to love the liberties for which it stands, as the 
blood-bought heritage of this our country and to obey the voice of the 
people before they bow to the decree of any priest or pope. 

It is time for us to inquire into some of the facts which will illustrate 
the breadth, the grip and the power of the common school system 
throughout the land. The figures which I present are from the annual 
report of the United States Commissioner of Education for 1885. These 
figures will be largely increased by the census about to be taken. 

In 1885 there were more than 270,000 public schools in this country, 
taught by 319,000 teachers. The total amount paid to these teachers in 
salaries exceeded $67,000,000, while the grand total of expenditure for the 
schools was $110,000,000. The total value of school buildings and grounds 


THE MAGNITUDE OF THE SYSTEM. 


13 


was $255,000,000. Into these schools there were gathered more than 11,- 
000,000 pupils. (At the present time probably 13,000,000.) 

Here then we have more than a quarter of a million of schools, 
scattered throughout the country; over two hundred and fifty millions of 
dollars of school property, supported at a yearly outlay of one hundred 
and ten millions and attended by eleven millions of pupils. Further- 
more these schools have back of them the wealth of the richest Nation 
on the globe. They are entrenched in the affections of that great, free 
people, whose liberties have all been purchased with blood. Any power 
which proposes to overthrow them, would do well to take the measure of 
its task. Any power which dares to undertake it, must feel confident of 
its ability to subvert our liberties and capture our government, for noth- 
ing short of this can overthrow our schools. Rome would do well to 
pause a long time on the threshold of such an undertaking. There are 
some things too large for her to accomplish. This is one of them. 

Let us now inquire concerning the influence which has been exer- 
ted by these public schools upon the moral and religious status of 
society. It is now directly charged that these schools are “godless” and 
that they are “nurseries of immorality. ” (The proof for this statement I 
shall present in connection with another address showing the nature and 
extent of the attack which Rome is making on our school system.) Now 
it is evident that any cause, operating over so wide a territory and so 
continuously as our public schools do , must produce nothing short of 
national consequences. If the schools are nurseries of vice and atheism, 
the tendency will be manifest in a lowering of the standard of morals 
and a decrease in church membership throughout the land. To charge 
that our public schools are nurseries of infidelity and vice, in order to 
prejudice certain parents against them, is one thing; to examine the 
facts in the wide fields of religion and morals, is quite another thing. It 
is always easier to denouce than to prove. 

1st. Has church membership decreased because of this alleged 
wide-spread teaching of infidelity in our public schools? For a certain 
reason, which I will state further on, I will present th.e facts in reference 
to Protestant churches. I have made use of the masterly summaries of 
Dr. Dorchester, in his “Problem of Religious Progress.” In this country 
during the present century the facts are as follows: 

Year. Churches. Members. 

1800 3,030 364,872 

1850 43,072 3,592,988 

1870 70,148 6,678,396 

1880 : 97,090 10,065,963 

1886 112,744 12,132,651 

Representing at least 42,000,000 Protestant adherents. 


FORTY-TWO MILLIONS— “SOLID!” 


14 


If now we take the ratio of communicants to population, during 
the different periods, we find that in 1800 the church members were 6.9 
per cent of the whole; 1850, 15.2 per cent; 1870, 18.7 per cent; 1880, 20 per 
cent. We see therefore that evangelical church membership has ad- 
vanced much more rapidly in proportion than even our rapid increase of 
population. While the population increased 9.5 fold during the period 
named, church-membership increased 27.5 fold. 

When therefore it is asserted that the public schools are nurseries of 
infidelity, we respond, the fact does not appear in any evil effect on the 
membership of the Protestant churches of this country. If the schools 
are training millions of infidels, church membership should fall off. But 
church membership has marvelously increased. It has increased nearly 
three times as fast, in proportion as population. But why don’t you 
reckon in the Catholic membership? Because, we don’t need to. It is 
their constant and oft-repeated boast, in every periodical which they 
issue, that they are increasing as never before. The ink with which 
they tell us that they number 6,000,000 in this country, is hardly dry, 
before they tell us that they number 9,000,000! We might confine our- 
selves to Catholic statements of their own growth in this country and 
convict their authorities of inconsistency when they say that the public 
schools are “nurseries of infidelity.” They claim to be growing as never 
before. If this is true, it cannot also be true that the public schools are 
rapidly making infidels of their members. But Protestants have no 
complaints to make against the public schools. Protestant churches are 
growing also with unprecedented growth. Protestants have over 42,000,- 
000 of adherents in this country to-day — probably nearer 45,000,000. 
Where then is this atheistic tendency of the public schools manifest? 
No where! The charge therefore is untrue. It is false. If the authori- 
ties of the Romish church reply, “But we count every one an infidel who 
repudiates the Catholic church; w r e count every member of a Protest- 
ant church all the more an infidel for being a member,” then we shall 
say to them, This is not the right latitude for such a statement as that. 
This country is not ready to receive the statement that all piety is in 
the church of Rome. There are forty-two millions of Protestant adher- 
ents, who love the house of God and the institutions of a true religion 
quite as sincerely as the seven or eight millions of Catholic adherents 
love their churches.- Let it be further borne in mind that these forty- 
two millions and more, may have their minor differences. There is how- 
ever, one thing on which they are “solid;” that is their conviction that 
the free schools of the United States are essential to our priceless liber- 
ties. There is another thing on which they are equally “solid;” that is 
their determination that no power of whatever name, or under whatever 


“ASK CASTLE GxlRDEN.” 


15 


cover, shall destroy them! No, it is not true that our public schools are 
“nurseries of infidelity.” I have shown that by unanswerable proofs. 

2nd. Concerning the charge that our public schools are “nurseries 
of immorality,” the answer cannot, within the limits of such an address, 
be as complete as in the other field. The facts are not as easily gathered 
and tabulated. Crime and criminals are not organized. In their very 
nature they are disorganizes. But it is certain that if, during the 
period of our national history, our public schools had been nurseries of 
vice, the tendency would long ago have been manifest in a national de- 
cline of morals. 

It would be really no wonder if there had been such a decline. We 
could easily account for it, if there were, without charging it to the ac- 
count of our noble public school system. For years we have been receiv- 
ing an influx of foreign population at the rate of half a million a year. 
These foreigners have brought with them, to put it mildly, a standard of 
morals which is far below our average. It is only fair to say, also, that 
most of them belong to that church whose authorities are criticising the 
morals of American schools. They have been all their lives under 
Romish training, yet they bring with them an average of morals far be- 
low that which they find here. I will not stop to prove this. It is ad- 
mitted. Ask Castle Garden! It would be no wonder, therefore, if with 
this steady inflow of immigration, the national standard of morals had 
been somewhat lowered. But the standard has not been lowered. The 
standard has steadily risen. Witness the quickened conscience of the 
Nation which, rising to a supreme emergency, smote off the shackles of 
slavery with the lightning of righteous wrath and the thunders of a 
righteous war. Witness the quickened conscience of the Nation in the 
great temperance reform. That reform has advanced from a former 
position, in which it was polite for every member of a social party to get 
drunk, to the present position, in which it is a lasting stigma upon any 
man to be seen drunk. It has advanced from a former position, in 
which every man thought he needed and might respectably have his jug 
of rum, tdlhe present position, in which several great states make it un- 
lawful for any man to have his jug of rum. Witness the advance of the 
public conscience from the former position in reference to gambling and 
lotteries. A little over a hundred years ago it was recorded by an hon- 
ored clergyman, as a cause of devout gratitude to Almighty God that his 
ticket in a lottery had drawn 500 pounds! (Trinity Records 1763.) Last 
winter every pastor in North Dakota, lifted his voice against the legisla- 
ture which came so near legalizing the lottery in that young state. Has 
there been no advance in moral sentiment? Witness the advance of 
public conscience from the former position, in which dueling was honor- 


16 


HOW MORALS IMPROVE. 


able, and practiced, by men high in public life, as DeWitt Clinton, Hamil- 
ton, Burr, Benton, Andrew Jackson, Clay and Randolph. In that for- 
mer condition it was possible for Andrew Jackson who had “slain his 
man,” to be President of the United States; and earlier it was almost 
possible for the miserable Aaron Burr to occupy the same ex- 
alted position. Witness therefore the advance of public conscience to 
the present position where no duelist can longer be respectable. 
No; public morals have not declined. We have not had a “hot- 
bed of immorality” in every school house of the land. It is to the free 
schools of this country, very largely, that we owe the encouraging ad- 
vance of morality in the very face of such overwhelming immigration as 
no nation ever before received. It is from the public schools of the land 
that the incoming foreigners receive their first lesson in American liber- 
ty and morals. Thither at once go the children who, quick of mind and 
plastic of tongue, soon acquire our language. They become, within a 
few weeks or months, the interpreters of the household. Through them 
the new ideas and the new standards of morals are conveyed. These 
ideas and standards, acquired at the high level of our free schools, bear 
in upon these thousands of households a new meaning for the word 
“liberty,” a new idea of manliness in a country where every man is 
thrown back largely upon the resources of his own sincerity and candor. 
Thus quickly, from the wholesome lessons of our American, free schools 
the leaven of a new and higher morality is felt in these homes. To this 
cause, not solely, but as a very large factor, I attribute the rapid assimi- 
lation of our large foreign element. 

Thus it is not true that our public schools are “hotbeds of immoral- 
ity.” Just the contrary is true. They constitute the earliest factor and 
one of the largest, in raising the moral standard of the millions who 
have come from foreign and largely from Catholic lands. 

It is true, however, that millions of our Catholic citizens, among 
them the most intelligent, love our public schools. They appreciate the 
free privilege of that superior education which their children may then* 
acquire. They are determined to enjoy their independence as American 
citizens in the use of these advantages. As one of them said a short 
time ago in this City: “When the bishop will pay the grocery and cloth- 
ing bills for my children, then perhaps I will talk with him about his 
schools; but as long as I feed and clothe my children, and as long as I 
live in this free country, I propose to send them to whichever school I 
think best.” Ah! there’s the trouble. I venture the opinion that he 
who said that, was once a free school pupil himself. That is the spirit 
which our free schools beget. It is the spirit of liberty. It is the spirit 
which rejects domination and investigates the right of the domineer. It 


GREAT LEYELERS. 


17 


is the spirit which says, “The time when one man, calling himself a 
‘bishop,’ may say to another, whom he calls a ‘layman,’ ‘Thou shalt’, and 
‘Thou shalt not,’ belongs to an epoch when the Catholic church was 
supreme. That was an epoch which the civilized world rightly calls 
‘The Dark Ages.’ That was an epoch which can never be revived. It 
has gone by. We, both Catholics and Protestants, live in a country 
which represents the power of the human mind divinely led to emerge 
from such darkness.” 

This spirit of independence, this noble assertion of manhood which 
everywhere confronts bishops and priests, in the persons of their most 
enlightened communicants, is the spirit which these people have imbided 
in their passage through our public schools. This is the real grievance 
of the Catholic prelates against them. The real complaint is not that 
they increase infidelity. I have shown that they do not. Nor is it that 
they increase vice. I have shown that they do not. But the real com- 
plaint is that they teach liberty, manliness, independence. They say 
nothing against bishops or priests. But they teach lessons of equality 
from which our children instantly perceive the fact that the difference 
between a bishop and any other man is not so great and essential as the 
church of Rome would have us think. Thus it is that our schools be- 
come great levelers. They teach our children to measure men by man- 
hood and to test pretensions by character. They bring the children of 
rich and poor together on a common level, where the aristocracy of 
wealth gives way to the aristocracy of attainment and scholarship. The 
son of the poor man goes forth from his successful recitation with a 
manly consciousness that there is an open field of honorable competition 
in which he stands an equal chance. For years he carries his head on a 
level with that of the rich man’s son, who must look well to it if he 
would hold his own. When rich and poor, side by side, emerge from 
that honorable arena of equal competition, it is into the broader arena 
of life, where no law or custom can ever thereafter draw the lines be- 
tween rich and poor as they would have been drawn, but for those early 
years when they learned to respect each other. For years they have 
been in an atmosphere of equality. They have kept step to and from 
the class room to a music and rythm which run like this: 

“For a’ that and a’ that, 

A man’s a man for a’ that.” 

When one comes forth from such an atmosphere he is prepared to 
yield obedience to rightful authority and he is prepared also to resist 
meddlesome interference with his personal rights. When in after years, 
he is confronted by one of his fellow citizens, who says to him, “You 
must do this and you must not do that,” he is very apt to ask, “By what 


18 


THE THRILLING SPECTACLE. 


right do you command me? The constitution of this free country gives 
no man, not even to the President of the United States, the right to 
command me, while I am within the laws.” 

Such are the perceptions of equality and such the manly attitude of 
one trained in our free schools. Our institutions of liberty, in the very 
words of their great charter declare, 1 'that all men are created equal.” 
This great truth is the very fibre of our country’s flag and it is also the 
vital atmosphere of our public schools. One who has breathed this at- 
mosphere ’till his blood has been vitalized with it, is not prepared to 
listen meekly while another, his “equal” fellow citizen, stands^ over him, 
in the attitude of a superior, saying, “You must not send your children 
to the public schools. You must send them to the schools which I ap- 
prove!” When any man, calling himself “bishop” or whatever, talks in 
that way to him, he is very apt to lift his head ’till the equal altitude of 
American citizenship appears and enquire: “By what right do you 
command me? Who gave you a greater authority over me than that of 
the President of the United States? Even he has no right to tell me 
which school I must and which I must not patronize. “The pope of 
Rome” did you say? Who gave him an authority over an American citi- 
zen greater than that of our Governor and greater than that of our Pres- 
ident? I deny the right of an old man sitting in the V atican *mid the 
ruins of his secular power, to command me. I am an American citizen. 
I live under the American flag. If in matters spiritual I belong to the 
church, in matters secular I belong to the United States. I will send 
my children to the public schools.” And the man who says that, is right. 

Oh, the thrilling spectacle! Tomorrow morning, at tap of bell there 
will be a simultaneous movement reaching from Plymouth Rock to the 
Golden Gate, from Great Lakes to Gulf, thirteen millions of children and 
youth, moving to the music of freedom; moving up into ever higher alti- 
tudes of wisdom; moving into ever broader conceptions of coming res- 
ponsibilities, 

“In the land of the free, 

And the home of the brave;” 

moving away from old errors; moving away from the former darkness; 
moving out into the light. It is a great movement. It will take more 
than a flank movement of Rome to stop it. And as our children and 
youth move on, thirteen millions strong I hear them singing an anthem 
born of liberty, whose notes find response in the very “rocks and rills:” 
“My Country ’tis of thee, 

Sweet Land of Liberty, 

Of thee I sing; 

Land where my fathers died, 

Land of the Pilgrim’s pride, 

From every mountain side, 

Let freedom ring!” 


/ 


THIRD ADDRESS. 


Extent and Meaning of the Romish Attack. 


A few weeks ago Leo XIII, the Pope of Rome, called in a reporter 
of the “New York Herald” and had along talk with him for the benefit 
of Americans. Among other things he said: “I have a claim upon 
Americans for their respect.” He goes on to say that he loves us all and 
has “great tenderness” for us. If there be about fifty millions of people 
in this country who refuse to take the proffered hand thus softly gloved, 
it is because we have learned that the hand within the glove is iron. I 
shall point out some of the reasons this evening why self-respecting and 
liberty loving Americans cannot reciprocate the greeting of Leo XIII. I 
shall show you that he and his subordinate officials of the Catholic 
church, in this country, under his “dictation,” are doing all they can to 
“break down” our public schools. I shall show you that they openly 
avow such an intention. The following significant item appeared in 
the papers last week, headed, “Catholics and the Schools.” 

Baltimore, Md.. May 12.— Monsignor D. J. O’Connell, president of 
the American College at Rome, who since the celebration of the cente- 
nary of the American Catholic hierarchy last November, has been trav- 
eling over the country inquiring into the school question, started for 
home on Saturday. He will make a report to the pope on the attitude 
of the church toward the public schools. In an interview Dr. O’Connell 
said: “I do not see why an amicable settlement of the school question 
cannot be reached. * * One of the troubles is that the utterances of 
so many irresponsible persons are taken as utterances of the church.” 

Notice the purport of this soft sounding item. Mgr. O’Connell, 
president of a college “at Rome,” has been examining our schools and 
“will make a report to the pope on the attitude of the church toward the 
public schools. ” Why should the delegate of any foreign power eccles- 
iastical or civil, be making reports to that power about our schools? 
What business has the pope to meddle with the schools of the United 
States, any more than Emperor William has to meddle with our armies? 
If Emperor William should send over a legate to examine our army 
and to adjust the difference between his military ideas and ours, we 
would send that legate home by the next steamer. Notice the last lines 
of this item, Mgr. O’Connell says: “One of the troubles is that the 
utterances of irresponsible persons are taken as utterances of the Church. ” 
Now the thing to which I call your especial attention, at the opening of 
this address, is that I shall quote not from “irresponsible persons” this 


20 


POPES, CARDINALS AND COUNCILS. 


evening; but in the main from the official utterances of “high and highest 
dignitaries of the Catholic church.” You shall see from their own words 
what is the extent and significance, of their attack on our schools, 
Romish adherents must either impeach their own highest witnesses or 
accept this testimony. Let it also from the outset be borne in mind 
that that on their own testimony, the utterances of Rome, 
whether by bishop or priest or council, all proceed from “dictation” 
of the Vatican. They all echo the pope when they speak. I hold in my 
hand a little volume entitled “Judges of Faith, or Christian vs. Godless 
Schools,” by a well known Catholic author, Thomas J. Jenkins. The 
book bears on its fly-leaf, the endorsement of Cardinal James Gibbons, 
archbishop of Baltimore. The author expresses his acknowledgment to 
numerous high officials of the Catholic church and in his preface declares 
that his book contains “the rulings * * of no less than three hundred 
and eighty of the high and highest church dignitaries” in reference to 
this question of the public schools. 

It cannot therefore be charged that the passages which I shall read 
from this book, are the misrepresentations of Protestants. Here are the 
utterances of highest Catholic authority. Here are their own words; 
disclosing their hatred of our schools; disclosing the virulence, the extent 
and the significance of that hatred. 

But it must be borne in mind continually that the great body of 
Catholic people in this country do not share this hatred of their leaders. 
The mass of Catholic people are loyal to American institutions. They 
are loyal to our free schools and the vast majority of their children are 
still in them. Millions of them would rise up today in defense of our 
schools, rather than permit them to be destroyed or marred. It is to 
such I would speak. It is to such we must speak, by agitating this 
question from Protestant pulpits and in the press throughout the land. 
We must set before them in clear light, what many do not now see— the 
intention of their leaders to destroy our free-school system. 

First then let us notice the spirit of the Romish authorities toward 
our schools. I affirm at the outset that they hate them and would des- 
troy them if they could. Notice the very title of this book, “Christian 
vs. Godless Schools. ” This is a book which contains the teaching of 
twenty one plenary and provincial councils, of several diocesan synods, 
of twenty cardinals and pontifical officials, thirty three archbishops and 
of two popes, and they are all summoned to declare that our schools are 
“godless.” On the third page we read that “Paganism in government 
* * has taken Christian children and offered them to the Mo- 
loch of the state education, heedless alike of the polished barbarism it is 
preparing for nations, and of the thunder tones of the voice of the moth- 


SHE “PROCLAIMS THE OUTRAGE.” 


21 


er of civilization (the church) who, like a virgin racked, but strong in her 
weakness, proclaims the outrage to the world: 'Before the Almighty 
Creator I claim these children as my own.’ ” 

A very astonishing claim, surely, but the interesting point for us is 
that Rome looks upon our schools as a fiery “Moloch” from which her 
children must be snatched away. In what respects our schools are a 
Moloch may be seen from the following passages: “Another evil fol- 
lowing from the attendance of Catholic children on schools of public in- 
struction, in the United States, is the constant association with ill-bred, 
unbelieving and immoral companions.” (page 16.) On the next page we 
read: “Of far worse influences in connection with public school associa- 
tions. We refer to the unrestrained immorality of many Protestant and 
other associates of Catholic children in public schools.” Thus far I have 
quoted the author, Mr. Jenkins. On page 35 he quotes, “the seven 
archbishops, thirty-seven bishops, two procurators and two mitred abbots 
of the Second plenary council of Baltimore who pronounce sentence on” 
“the evil nature and workings,” of our public schools, “in the whole 
union,” The following are the words of that council: “Serious evils 
and great danger are entailed upon Catholic youth by their frequenta- 
tion of public schools in this country. Such is the nature of teaching 
therein employed that it is not possible to prevent young Catholics from 
incurring through its influence, danger to their faith and morals; * * 

nor can we ascribe to any other cause * * that corruption of morals 
which we have to deplore in those of tender years.” This is an utter- 
ance of the highest authority known to American Catholics aside from 
the pope, and the author adds: “Intelligent readers need scarcely be re- 
minded that these utterances are dictated under the personal supervis- 
ion of the vicar of Christ himself.” This we knew, but it is well to have 
it on authority, that plenary councils, cardinals and bishops of the 
Romish church, speaking on this question, are under “dictation” from 
Rome. 

You have heard the plenary council; listen now to Archbishop 
Perche, of New Orleans: “Our public school system * * * is em- 
phatically a soqial plague. It is no system of education at all, but the 
simple and direct negation of such, since it excludes all creed, without 
which education * * is impossible. The public school system is not 
imperfect only, it is also vicious. * * Your very blood would curdle 
in your veins at the bare recital, * * of the scandals of which they 
are the scene. ” (p. p. 94 and 95 J. of F.) And such is the kind of 
statements with which Catholic parents are being prejudiced against our 
schools! Such the calumny with which it is sought to induce them to 
withdraw their children. 


22 


U A SIN” TO PATRONIZE PUBLIC SCHOOLS. 


But listen to another authority of the Romish church, Archbishop 
Elder of Cincinnati: “On this subject we have no new instruction to 
give. The declarations of the Holy Mother church have been of late 
years so numerous and clear that there is nothing for a Catholic but to 
obey them or renounce his religion. ‘He that will not hear the church, 
let him be to thee as a heathen and a publican. 7 * * Where Catholic 
schools can be established it is a sin to send Catholic children to other 
schools. * * God grant that our fellow citizens may see, before it is 
too late, how this method of rearing children (that is in public schools) 
is helping the desolating march of dishonesty and every immorality 
through the land.” (pp 82 and 83, J. of F.) 

To the same intent I could quote many more passages from the 
same volume, showing the spirit and attitude of Rome toward our 
schools. The schools are assailed, not by “irresponsible parties,” but by 
the best authorities of the Catholic church, who are, we are told by our 
author, under the dictation of the pope himself. Our schools are 
characterized by these high authorities, as “g'odless,” “pestilential,” 
“diabolical,” “filthy, 77 “scandalous,” “social plagues,” “vicious, 77 as 
places of “unrestrained immorality;” as places where things are done, 
the mere recital of which would “curdle the blood in your veins.” 

But a paragraph in the author’s own words shall summarize this part 
of my address: “What can such children (public school children) know 
about or care for the commission of horrible sins against the Ten Com- 
mandments — in the use of the name of God in cursing, imposing upon 
the weak, stealing, injuring property and secret sins unnamed? We 
will not become scandal-mongers by retailing what is known about cer- 
tain dark rooms, closets and writings on the wall * * all signalizing 
the glories of co-educatien. (I omit here one charge of conduct between 
teachers and pupils too filthy to quote. ) Children large and small are 
left to the unrestrained sway of their passions. In fine we may say that 
their morals, fundamentally and necessarily corrupted, reach but the 
standard of heathen and natural virtue.” (p. 18, J. and F.) 

I will not here attempt to say what should be thought of the “morals” 
of one who can descend to such horrible misrepresentation as the author 
here indulges. We can only hope that he does not represent the kind of 
truthfulness taught in parochial schools. But surely his language is no 
stronger than that of his superiors already quoted. It all shows the de- 
grading views and the implacable hatred of the Romish church against 
our schools. And these are the views of all Roman authorities. I have 
quoted from the plenary council which represents all America and the 
pope, from archbishops in Cincinnati and New Orleans. The list might 
be enlarged to include bishops from lakes to gulf, from sea to sea— nay 


ABSOLUTION DENIED. 


23 


to include bishops and archbishops the world around. For this move- 
ment of Rome is not only against the free schools of America, but 
against free schools the world over, wherever the free school system 
prevails. 

Now as to the significance of this world-wide movement; what does 
it mean here in America? What is its bearing on our cherished free- 
school system? It means first of all that the Catholic authorities are 
preparing the way and withdrawing Catholic children as rapidly as pos- 
sible. Hundreds of thousands have already been withdrawn, and the 
work is to go on, if they can have their way, , until not a Catholic child 
remains in the public schools. How is this to be done? By that tre- 
mendous enginery of Rome, the power of the keys. Absolution is to be 
denied— is now as far as prudent being denied— to parents who refuse to 
take their children out of the public schools. Hear the decree of the 
synod held in Louisville Oct. 22d, 1879; “Absolution is to be denied 
to parents or guardians who presume to send their children 
under nine years old to a public school in a place where there exists a 
Catholic school.” Archbishop Gilmore of Cleveland, in his Lenten pas- 
toral of 1873, devoted largely to education, says: “If parents either 
through contempt for the priest or disregard for the laws of the church, 
or for trifling reasons, refuse to send their children to a Catholic school; 
then in such cases * * we authorize confessors to refuse the 

sacraments to such parents, as thus despise the laws of the church and 
disobey the command of both priest and bishops.” 

I might quote from other bishops, who are under “dictation” from 
Rome, to show that this awful enginery is in operation, not in isolated 
localities, but throughout this country. You and I have no use for the 
priest, the confessional or absolution. We believe that every soul com- 
ing directly to God through Christ may be fully and freely forgiven. 
But the Catholic believes that the priest has the power to shut him out 
of heaven; that if absolution is refused there is no hope for him. And 
this fearful threat to withhold the sacraments is made, not because these 
Catholics are committing any sin, but because they refuse the domina- 
tion of the priest! Not because they are found violating the command- 
ments, but because they insist on their rights as free American citizens 
to send their children to Ameri can schools, which they are taxed to sup- 
port. Let them keep on insisting on their rights. Let the priests and 
bishops look out for themselves. 

This widespread antagonism to the public schools means also that 
Rome expects to be able to cause many of our schools to be entirely de- 
serted and so to be worthless, and ultimately and generally to cause the 
overthrow of our school system . Please note carefully the following 


24 


A BOOTLESS ENTERPRISE. 


words from the third page of this volume: “Neither is it expected or 
designed by a Catholic that he should aid in any secret conspiracy for the 
bootless enterprise of suddenly overthrowing a public and legal system, 
unlawful though that system be. We bring home to the conscience of 
Catholics that it is their duty to continue deserting all mere secular 
schools, and building schools of their own, until public opinion itself 
shall undermine what contains the source of its own downfall and we be 
relieved of unjust taxes.” That is, although our schools are “legal,” ac- 
cording to the laws of this country, they are “unlawful” according to 
the laws of the Romish church. Therefore they are to meet their “down- 
fall,” not “suddenly” — wisdom of the Jesuit forbid!— but they are to be 
“undermined” by a gradual process, which is to transform public senti- 
ment in favor of the Catholics. We are obliged to the author for his 
frankness, and we will do what we can to prevent that “undermining” 
process. On page nine he further tells us how it is to be done: “Catho- 
lics will continue building schools on their own grounds, until like the 
many deserted sectarian temples which are acquired by inpouring child- 
ren of the church, the future State school buildings left empty by Catho- 
lics deserting them * * shall also be lawfully acquired and oc- 

cupied by denominational (Catholic) schools.” 

That would surely seem to be plain enough, but a representative of 
Rome in the Boston “Globe,” 1885, still futher enlightens us as to how 
the church will “lawfully acquire our schools. He says: “We want to 
make our children good Catholics. We must have positive Christian 
schools, even at the expense of building and supporting them, and 
though we should empty half the grand school buildings in Boston and 
give them to be sold at public auction to the highest bidder.” Here then 
we have the scheme in plain English. Leave Catholic children in the 
schools until the state has erected the buildings, then take them out in 
such numbers as to make the buildings in certain localities worthless; 
then let them be sold at auction with the certainity that the Catholic 
authorities will be on hand to buy. Isn’t that just what it means? Such 
then is the plainly declared purpose of the Roman church, to “under- 
mine,” and to “overthrow” our public schools, and when the ruin has 
been wrought, to possess herself of our school buildings, which are first 
to be “deserted” then “to be sold at public auction.” 

And in all of this the hierarchy claims to be acting on its divine 
rights. The New York Tablet, a Catholic papersays: “Education is the 
business of the spiritual society alone and not of the secular society. * * 
The state usurps the function of the spiritual society when it turns 
educator. The organization of the schools, their entire arrangement and 
management * * * belongs exclusively to the spiritual society. ” (R. 


HEAR THE POPE HIMSELF. 


25 


and R. p. 161.) Bishop Rosecrans said in 1873: “The faithful are re- 
quired by conforming to the words of Christ’s Vicegerent (the pope) their 
head and the head of all the faithful, to break down these schools, by 
doing their bounden duty, etc.” But lest you should say, “these are 
subordinates, ” hearken now to the words of the pope, the “infallible” 
head of the Roman church, he says: “The Roman church has the right 
to interfere in the discipline of the public schools and in the choice of 
the teachers of these public schools. Public schools open to all children, 
for the education of the young, should be under the control of the Roman 
church and should not be subject to the civil power, nor made to con- 
form to the opinions of the age.” (Encyclicals xlv and xitvii.) 

Americans are not easily disturbed. They are slow to arouse to a 
great danger. But when such utterances as these, which I have quoted 
this evening, are fairly before them, they wake up. When they hear the 
authorities of Rome, coolly proposing to sell our school property under 
the hammer and to be themselves the purchasers, they will want to know 
about that. When they hear our schools assailed by the vilest calumnies 
and epithets, they will enquire whence the slander proceeds. When they 
hear the highest Roman authorities declaring that all education belongs 
to their church and that it is the duty of Catholics to “break down” our 
public schools, to the end that their church may control education in this 
country,— they will be angry. The masses of the people will soon com- 
prehend the breadth and the significance of this movement against our 
schools. Then let the power which has invaded our civil rights, to assail 
the schools, be quick to withdraw to its own spiritual domain! Americans 
are long-suffering; but there is one thing they will not tolerate: They 
will not endure ecclesiastical interference with our civil rights. Wliat 
would become of American liberties if the views, which I have this 
evening quoted, could become operative in this land? Where would be 
our liberties if every Protestant clergyman were endowed with power to 
order his people what to do and what not to do, on pain of losing their 
souls, as Catholic priests order their flocks? Where will be our liberties 
when the right, claimed by the pope, to interfere in all the affairs of our 
public schools, is once admitted? 

Let no word be here spoken in malice. Rather let our friends, of the 
Catholic church, be assured that Protestants desire for them, the fullest 
measure of religious liberty guaranteed by our constitution. We would 
take as an equal assault upon the liberties of all, any attempt to abridge 
their rights. But they in turn must not invade the constitutional liber- 
ties of others, by assailing the schools. Do their authorities expect to go 
on, unchallenged, uttering such things, as I have quoted this evening? 
Do they expect that the forty-five millions of Protestant adherents in this 


POPE AND REPORTER. 


26 


land, will always be silent while they go on declaring that our schools 
are too filthy for Catholic children? While they proceed before our 
very eyes with all of the fearful enginery in their power to “break them 
down, 77 after explicitly declaring their purpose to do so? If they do they 
mistake entirely the spirit of the people with whom they have to deal. 
When we are told that our schools are “godless,” that in them “immor- 
ality is unrestrained,” let it be understood that whosoever holds such 
language whether he be priest, bishop, archbishop, or the pope himself — 
has attacked one of our dearest institutions and we shall rise up to its 
defense. When we are told by Mgr. Capel that “there is going to be a 
fight,” over this school question; when he tells us that by the utterance 
os a word, “sharp as the click of a trigger,” Catholic children can be 
compelled to leave our schools; when we are told that our schools are to 
be “deserted” and “broken down;” when all over the land, and at our 
very doors, we hear the word of command which enforces the “desertion,” 
then we are compelled to ask, “What do these things mean?” We are 
compelled to understand what they mean. And this process is by the 
“dictation” of the pope. So their authorities tell us. And yet in the 
very midst of this enginery, already in motion, to “crush the life out” of 
our most cherished liberty, that pope tells the reporter that he has k *a 
claim on the respect of Americans!” What claim? No man has any 
claim on American respect who is seeking to destroy American institu- 
tions. He tells us of his “tenderness” for us. We must refuse such 
tenderness from any man who demands from millions of Americans, an 
allegiance greater than that which they owe to their country. The ten- 
der mercies of such an one are cruel. Listen to the words of his last en- 
cyclical, January 10th, 1890: “It is an impious deed to transgress the 
laws of the church, under the pretext of observing civil law.” But the 
pope himself is “the law” of the Romish church. Ills will is supreme. 
What is plainer than that he sets himself above our civil laws? Hear 
him again. In 1886 he said: “The judicial functionaries (of the church) 
must refuse obedience to the state, and to the laws of the country which 
are in contradiction with Roman Catholic precepts.” These are the 
teachings of that man who has “great tenderness” for us. But let him 
be assured that the laws of America recognize no church, nor any sov- 
ereign pontiff. Let him understand that Americans hold their laws 
above the will of any pope, and they further hold that any citizen who 
obeys a foreign power, instead of the laws of the United States, is a 
traitor to this good government. There must be no uncertainty here. 
We don’t accept the pope's doctrine of his supremacy over our laws or 
our citizens for one moment. There must be no doubt here. There can nev- 
er be in America any oath to a foreign power superior to that which binds 


NO STATE RELIGION. 


27 


us to our flag. If Leo XIII is testing this matter, of his supremacy over 
millions of our citizens, by this movement on our schools, it is well that 
we are coming to understand it. Why did Father Hecker say in 1870, 
“There is ere long to be a state religion in this country and that state 
religion is to be Roman Catholic!” What mean such utterances? What 
is their bearing on this simultaneous movement against our schools 
throughout the land? Let each free American citizen draw his own 
conclusions. 

But I will answer the insult of Father Hecker. I will answer him in 
the name of those early patriots whose blood has forever consecrated the 
soil of Bunker Hill and Yorktown; I will answer him in the name of 
those patriot statesmen who framed our constitution against the union 
of church and state; I will answer him in the name of that greater host 
whose bodies lie in the national cemeteries at Arlington and Gettysburg 
and Shiloh; I will Answer him in the name of that coming host, already 
patriotic, who are rising up through our public schools thirteen millions 
strong to noblest conceptions of liberty and citizenship; I answer him in 
the name of more than fifty millions of free Americans when I say, the 
Roman Catholic religion will never be a state religion! Never! Ameri- 
cans have learned well that mighty lesson of the centuries which teach- 
es that liberty, and state religion can never exist at the same time in the 
same land. American liberties were never born to die in the lap of eccle- 
siastical tyranny. They were born for the ages, and they will continue 
long after the world has learned to dispense with popes and bishops and 
plenary councils. 


FOURTH ADDRESS. 


Public School Money must not be Divided— The Reasons 

Why. 


At the outset this evening I wish to call attention again and with 
emphasis to the fact that we are not making war on Catholics. If there 
is any war the authorities of the Romish church are the aggressors. 
They have publicly attacked our schools. I am seeking, with legiti- 
mate argument, with carefully gathered facts and with quotations from 
highest authorities to meet that attack. With the Catholic laity w r e 
have no war. They are our fellow citizens and among them are many 
whom I have been glad to esteem as my friends. When our schools are 
attacked by the hierarchy we must meet the attack. And we will. 

In three previous addresses I have shown from high authorities of the 
Romish church that war has been declared against our public schools; 
that they are being attacked on every side and thousands of children 
being withdrawn from them, on the charge that the schools are immoral 
and godless. I have shown, by indisputable facts, that these charges are 
slanders. 

We come now to the question of the public school fund and I propose 
to show this evening the reason why we can never consent to a division 
of that fund. But first we shall be asked, “Is it sure that a division is 
demanded? What is your proof?” I answer, the demand is now made in 
the broadest terms. There is no longer any concealment. There is, 
rather a concerted movement all along the line. Influences are brought 
to bear in politics, national and local, in society, in business; and the ef- 
fect is very manifest especially in communities which have a strong Cath- 
olic element. Years ago, as those in middle life can remember, when the 
parochial schools were very few and very weak, nothing was openly said 
about Catholic rights to public money. The whole business was then 
conducted in a very quiet and unobtrusive manner. The few children 
who were gathered by the priest, came and went to and from the little 
parish school building, which belonged to a system that seemed glad of 
its chance to exist. It didn’t make any loud demands in those days. 
Things have greatly changed since that time. The time came when the 
demand was heard. The New York Tablet of Nov. 27, 1866, said: “Ap- 
propriate to the support of Catholic schools the proportion of the public 
money according to the number of the children they educate, and leave 
the selection of teachers, the studies, the discipline, the whole internal 


“CONTINUALLY PRESSING” FOR PUBLIC MONEY. 


29 


management to the Catholic educational authorities.” That is perfectly 
plain language is it not? 

The little book “Judges of Faith” which bears the endorsement of 
Cardinal Gibbons and which contains the rulings of plenary councils and 
bishops by the score, says on its 41st page: “In the province of Quebec, 
by the regulation of government, Catholics have the privilege of denom- 
inational or separate Catholic schools .(supported by government — B.) 
* * * an example we, of the United States, are continually pressing 
upon the mind of our otherwise fair American public for their imitation 
in our regard.” That is equally plain. The day has come when Catholic 
authorities “are continually pressing” for a share of the public money. 
Hear also what the late Bishop J. B. Purcell in his Lenten pastoral of 
1872, speaking of “the providing and endowing of Catholics schools” 
said: “But what is our astonishment to find ourselves oppressed with 
taxes, instead of meeting with the support and sympathy of the state 
authorities.” (p. 84 J. of F.) Indeed! Is it an astonishing thing that 
the state did not come right forward and help “support” the Catholic 
schools? Congregationalists have colleges in different parts of this 
land; but we have never been astonished that the government has failed 
to help us support them. Methodists have never deemed themselves 
“oppressed with taxes” because the government has failed to support 
their colleges; nor Presbyterians, nor Baptists. Such a cry as this comes 
only from Catholics. To the same purport I might quote the utterances 
of the Bishop of Trenton, Bishop McQuaid of Rochester, and others. 
But the latest utterance is that of Hon. Edmund F. Dunne, of Florida, 
who read a paper on“Education” before the great Catholic Congress in Bal- 
timore last November. It is an interesting fact to this locality, that this 
paper of Judge Dunne has been so far endorsed by Bishop Hennessey as 
to be circulated, in printed copies, from the cathedral, with the com- 
mendation of the parish priest. The whole paper is most remarkable in 
its claims. The author apparently does not confine himself to the sub- 
ject of Education. His Catholic enthusiasm seems to break all bounds 
and to leap to such words as these: “Is not this whole country a Catho- 
lic land?” If Judge Dunne asks for information we will modestly ven- 
ture to answer: Not quite. It only lacks about five-sixth. There are 
considerably more than fifty millions of free American citizens here who 
care no more for the edicts and bulls and encyclicals of Leo xm than 
they do for a ukase of the Czar of Russia. Forty-five millions of these 
people are Protestant adherents to wdiom the name of Luther, dead, is a 
thousand times more than the will of Leo, living! But listen to Judge 
Dunne again: “The Catholic seal is set on this land— forever. ” It is in- 
teresting to note such utterances in a paper on “Education,” read before 


30 


“THE CATHOLIC SEAL— ON THIS LAND!” 


the great American Catholic congress. What have such words to do 
with “Education?” Has not the author wandered from his theme? Not 
for a moment! These words are the unconscious interpreters of this 
whole movement for Catholic education as against our public schools. So 
closely is the movement connected with the ultimate purpose, that in 
moments of great enthusiasm, the mind of the speaker leaps from 
the schools which Rome is to build and capture to the grand consumma- 
tion when this whole country, which now has “the Catholic seal” upon it, 
shall be “really a Catholic land!” What tremendous leaps one can 
make— in his dreams! 

But let us see what this writer has to say about the public money. 
These are his words: “Catholics have consciences. They know that they 
have souls. They know that they must fit their children for an immor- 
tal life, and because of that they demand equal rights in the application 
of the means which God has furnished for that purpose. In this they 
ask but for justice * * that no bar be placed in the pathway of the 
soul to its heavenly home. And shall they not have justice? The state 
which demands education, which collects money by public tax and pays 
that money out for teaching, must pay equally all who teach. How 
dare it discriminate? How dare it keep public money special favor- 
ites?” There it is, friends, in all of its naked simplicity. The state 
must not “obstruct” Catholics “in their pathway to the heavenly home” 
by taxing them. If it does it must immediately hand the money back, 
and so show that it does not dare to discriminate. That is, while it 
keeps the tax money collected from Methodists and Baptists, it will show 
its beautiful impartiality by handing back the money collected from 
Catholics! Truly this ex-chief justice of a territory has a judicial mind! 
But hear him further: “But the state cannot pay teachers who teach re- 
ligion! Why not?” And this is a question asked by a man who has 
been a “chief justice.” Has the man ever read the constitution of the 
United States? And does he ask why the state cannot teach religion? 
Truly if such a man must be appointed “chief justice” of a territory 
then there was a certain respect for the fitness of things when he was 
sent to Arizona, where Pueblo Indians abide in sweet ignorance of con- 
stitutions and of liberties. 

Here, then, is the demand, clearly, fully, explicitly, and, in these 
days “continually” made, that the government shall divide the public 
money with a religious sect. And there are not lacking thoughtless or 
craven spirits among us who are already saying: “Let them have a share 
of the public money. What’s the harm? Anything for peace. Its the 
only way we can satisfy them.” Americans! — you who are beginning to 
talk or think that way— do you realize what this involves? It is impossi- 


INVINCIBLE BATTLE ARRAY. 


31 


ble that you do. No loyal American who has thought this question 
through, will consent to* such a proposal for a moment. Thirty years 
ago we heard the cry: “Divide this Union with us. Give us what is 
south of the Ohio; you take what is north of it. It is the only way you 
can have peace with us.’ 7 We said to them “No! We will not divide 
this Union, and we will have peace with you if we have to fight for it!” We 
didn’t divide with them. They are glad now that we didn’t. We are 
still living under the one flag and we have peace with them. And the 
Union preserved is worth all of the blood and suffering which it cost. It 
may be well to recall that this country doesn’t divide things under 
threat. We don’t propose to divide the school fund under any threat 
that this is the only way to keep peace with our Catholic neighbors. 
There are a great many in this country who think that peace at that 
price would be too dear. We think moreover that any peace so pur- 
chased, would rob our American liberties of their meaning and our flag 
of its glory. 

If the Catholic authorities tell me that I am out of the way when 1 
speak of such a threat, then I open this book, of their own publication, 
bearing the imprimatur of Cardinal Gibbons, and read on page 47 where 
we are told that there is a “marshaling of the leaders of the world wide 
contest between the church and the state for the possession of the souls 
of the little ones of Christ.” (Judges of Faith). On the same page we 
are told “millions of Irishmen stand united in invincible battle array, 
but waiting the word of command from their spiritual chiefs to fight the 
good fight for their own and their children’s souls.” On page 86 we read 
Bishop Rosecrans’ words about the “opposition of state schools” and, 
immediately following, this comment by the author: “The sons of the 
Crusaders are not yet extinct. They live they breathe, they fight.” 

If I may be permitted to remind the author, the Crusaders were in- 
gloriously whipped by Saladin, at Tiberias, July 4th, 1187. After a time 
they were driven completely out of the Holy Land and their descendants 
can visit the Holy Sepulchre only by consent of “the unspeakable Turk.” 
But about six centuries later something else happened on July 4th. Do 
you recall what it was? A Declaration was given to the world by a peo- 
ple about to cast off the yoke and be free— free from popes and kings, 
free in their persons, free in their churches and free in their schools! 
That Declaration still stands and the people who made it have never been 
whipped. The school money will not be divided by the “Sons of the 
Crusaders;” nor will it be divided by “miliions of invincible Catholics in 
battle array.” 

Let me first point out some of the minor reasons why this cannot be 
done. It is demanded on the score of’ “justice.” It would be the most 


32 


THE FLAG BEFORE THE POPE. 


grievous injustice ever perpetrated on American soil. The money col- 
lected by tax belongs to the state, no longer either to the individual or 
any society. Yet here is proposition to take this money and devote it to 
the interests of a particular sect, which would spend it beyond the power 
of state supervision, for the promotion of its own particular interests. 
They propose to use it in a way which would be abhorrent to a vast ma- 
jority of the tax payers. They propose to teach first of all and above all, 
not the intelligence and patriotism which make good citizens, but the 
tenets of that church which demands allegiance to the pope before al- 
legiance to the flag. They must teach their religion, they say. If so 
they must teach what the pope teaches. He teaches that allegiance of 
Catholic citizens is due to himself before it is due to the state. Hear 
these words from the pope’s last encyclical (January 1890): “If the laws 
of the state command anything prejudicial to the church or are hostile 
to the duties imposed by religion (with a Catholic that means Catholi- 
cism) or violate in the person of the supreme pontiff the authority of 
Jesus Christ, then it is a duty to resist them and a crime to obey them.” 

Now there are about fifty millions of people in this country to whom 
it would be a great injustice, if public money should be used to teach 
such a doctrine as that. What right could there possibly be to take the 
public money of a free people to teach that the first allegiance is not due 
to its own flag, but to a foreign power? What government could ever con- 
sent to give of its money to thus exalt another power above its own? 
None but an imbecile government, already enslaved by the ursurping 
power, would ever consent to such a preposterous claim. The United 
States is not yet an imbecile or a slave. It is not yet ready to help teach 
its own inferiority to the mitred power of the Vatican. It is not yet 
ready to pay millions of its own money to teach that the decrees of the 
pope are higher authority for Americans than the laws of the govern- 
ment. It will never be ready to teach that. 

The third plenary council of Baltimore (1885) in its decree on “ways 
and means of promoting parochial schools,” says: “Let priests love 
their schools * * Let them teach the catechism and Bible history 
themselves.” But the prime doctrine of that “Catechism” is the, 
supremacy of the pope on earth. That is taught to all who learn the 
catechism. Listen then to one of the utterances of Piux ix and see if it 
is proper teaching for those who are being trained for citizenship in a 
country where freedom of speech and worship are the very sheet-anchor 
of our liberties. January 1, 1870. Cardinal Antonelli for Pius ix, wrote 
the bishop of Nicaraugua that “freedom of education and worship are 
both contrary to the laws of God and the church.” In his encyclical of 
Aug. 1854 the same pope said: “The absurd and erroneous doctrines or 


WHAT IS THEIR SHARE? 


33 


ravings in defense of liberty of conscience are a most pestilential error — * 
a pest of all others most to be dreaded in a state.” The state can never 
give its money for the teaching of such doctrines in this free country. 
It would be the grossest injustice. It would be the climax of partiality. 
It would be giving our public money to teach a part of our children to 
mock at our liberties. 

But suppose it could consent. Who is to say what the Catholic 
share of the money is? Shall it he distributed to those who pay most 
and have fewer children, or to those who pay little and have many 
children? Eecundity and taxable property attract each other in the 
inverse ratio. When once it shall be determined to divide the public 
money, questions will arise which never have arisen before in this govern- 
ment. Childless men of wealth, who have cheerf ully paid their school 
tax to support schools for Protestant and Catholic children alike— 
schools where morality and patriotism are taught — would justly raise 
their voices against taking their money to support schools for a single 
sect, where the children are taught to honor and obey the pope of Rome 
more than they honor the flag, and obey the laws of this free country, 

But we must press the question still further. If Rome is to have 
her “share,” who can deny the Methodists, the Baptists, the Presbyteri- 
ans, the Congregationalists and the Quakers? The Methodists, members 
of that noble church having in this country today as many adherents as 
the church of Rome, could justly come forward and claim an equal share 
of the money on the score of numbers, and a greater share on the score 
of taxable property of its followers. The Baptists, scarcely behind in 
numbers, could demand their “share” of the fund. The Presbyterians 
would raise a voice like that of John Knox in the court of Mary, unless 
they also should have their share. The Congregationalists, descendants 
of the Pilgrims, founders of the common school system, would demand 
their share of the estate when it is to be broken up. Where would this 
dismemberment of our school fund stop? Where could it stop? No- 
where this side of the end. Not while a cent of the fuiid remained. 
Then would begin a new chapter of crimination and recrimination. No 
possible division could be made which would satisfy all parties. And if 
all could be satisfied today, what of the new sect or social club which 
might arise the day after? They would have an equal right. The right 
itself would stimulate the founding of societies, each of which could 
make its demand, saying “How dare the government discriminate? We 
have as good a right as the Catholics!” And the claim could not be de- 
nied. 

I will tell you a better way: Leave things as they are! Let our pub- 
lic school money alone. Let the children of rich and poor, of Catholic 


i 


34 


ROME AS A SCHOOL TEACHER. 


and Methodist, of Jew and Gentile, continue to meet together on the com- 
mon level of our free schools, and let this great, free country continue to 
be the mother of them all. Any plan to divide the fund is a plan which 
will ruin the schools. That plan has only been proposed by those who 
have declared that purpose. 

We must press another question which will disclose another reason 
why we can never consent to a division of the fund. Rome asks the state 
to hand over to her millions of dollars from the public fund for teaching 
purposes. When a person applies for a vacancy in the teaching force of 
our schools, his record and capacity are examined. He must stand or 
fall by the record. Rome has been in the teaching business a long time. 
What is her record? Ireland has been under her tutelage for centuries. 
What is the percentage of illiteracy in Ireland? Portugal has been 
largely subject to Rome for centuries. What of proportionate intelli- 
gence and ignorance there? What of Spain? What of Brazil? What 
of Mexico? What of our own New Mexico, where, until a few years ago, 
Rome has been undisturbed in her school teaching? New Mexico, after 
three centuries of Romish teaching, reported in 1880 sixty per cent, of 
her population over ten years old that could neither read nor write. 
Even that represented a very rapid improvement over the report of 1870, 
on which the “agent in charge of statistics of education” remarks: “The 
change in New Mexico may be safely attributed to the establishment of 
common schools. ” When the common schools come there is great im- 
provement at once. (Compend. 10th census. II, 1637.) Rome’s record as 
a school teacher does not warrant her demand for millions of our school 
money. Compare with New Mexico the states where Catholicism has 
not been permitted to control education — where the public school has 
prevailed. 

Take Massachusetts with only 5. 3 per cent illiterate; or Connecticut 
4. 2; or Michigan 3. 8; or Iowa 2. 4. The result wherever free schools 
have prevailed is substantially the same— a very high grade of intelli- 
gence. The United States, a free government, depending on the 
enlightenment of its citizens for the support of its laws, must have a 
high grade of intelligence. It cannot afford to divide its school money 
with an ecclesiastical power, which has never produced a high average 
grade of intelligence, in countries where it has had its own way. 

But the reason above all others why we can never conset to a divis- 
ion of the school money, is the fact that it would violate the constitu- 
tion of our government. It would subvert our religious liberties. The 
first amendment to the constitution declares: “Congress shall make no 
law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free .ex- 
ercise thereof . ” The constitutions of many states are in accord with 


AMENDMENT XVI(?) 


35 


this provision. That of New York says: “The free enjoyment and ex- 
ercise of religions profession and worship without discrimination or 
preference shall forever be allowed in this state to all mankind.” How 
is congress or any state to make any law, permitting public money to be 
applied to any church purpose, without violating these constitutional 
rights V If public money is applied to any church schools, then the 
people are of course taxed to support that church; and when any church 
is in any respect, supported by public money, it is to that extent an 
“established religion.” To just that extent the government discrimina- 
tes in favor of that church and against all others. Just that thing has 
already been done, in different parts of this country, where public money 
has been applied to the support of Romish institutions. The country is 
beginning to wake up to thest facts and the day is near at hand when 
these violations of constitutional rights will no longer be permitted. 

But why not amend state and national constitutions, so as to permit 
Catholics to have their share of the public money? That is the only 
way in which public money can be lawfully paid to them. The demand 
for it which is now so widely made, therefore, is practically a demand 
that the constitution of our country be amended in favor of a sect. Let 
us see how such an amendment would sound to American ears: 

“Amendment xvi: Congress may make laws to divide all public 
moneys devoted to education in such manner that the Roman Catholic 
church shall receive a share of the whole equal to her proportion 
of population, of school age.” Wouldn’t such an amend- 
ment as that have a strange sound to Americans? Wouldn't the name 
of any particular church or religion have a strange look in either our 
national or our state constitutions? But that is the only way that public 
money can lawfully be applied to any religious sect. And when the 
constitution of our country, or of our state shall contain an amendment 
in favor of any sect or church, then we shall have in America an estab- 
lished religion, and America will be no longer free. When, therefore, 
you divide the school money, you must establish a religion; when you es- 
tablish a religion, you go back to the religious bondage of the Dark Ages. 
That is what the division of the school fund, in the last analysis, comes 
to. xVre you ready for that, Americans? 

If not, whenever and wherever there is opportunity, let your voices 
be heard against any power or person that proposes to divide our free 
school fund. In this new exigency let Americans declare, in the name 
of that flag which celebrates our freedom from the tyrannies of the past 
and our glory in the liberties of the present; in the name of that con- 
stitution which forbids the union of church and state; in the name of 
that religious liberty which makes discrimination odious; in the name of 
our children and of unborn millions whose rights we must conserve, and 
in the name of Christ the Lord from whom all liberty proceeds, that the 
free schools of America shall continue free and that the public money 
which supports them shall never be perverted at the demands of any 
church. 


FIFTH ADDRESS. 


Many Public Schools Captured by Catholics!— A School in 
a Nunnery!— -Numbers of Districts and Names 
of Teachers Given. 


In the four previous addresses we have seen that Catholic authorities 
from the pope and plenary councils down to bishops and priests, are en- 
gaged in an attack on our public schools. I have quoted from the very 
words of these authorities, their intention to “break down,” or pervert 
these schools to their own uses. Two distinct processes are in operation, 
one to break down our public schools. How this is to be done we have 
been told by the Catholic author on page three of “Judges of Faith” in 
these words: “We bring home to the consciences of Catholics that it is 
their duty to continue deserting all mere secular schools, and building 
schools of their own, until public opinion itself undermine what con- 
tains the source of its own downfall and we be relieved of unjust taxes. ” 
The Boston “Globe” (Catholic) tells us that this process of desertion is 
to go on even though it should cause our schools “to be sold at auction.” 
This is one process. The schools are to be broken down where they cannot 
be controlled. But they are to be perverted and controlled when they 
can be. Recall the words of the pope in encyclicals xlv and xlvii. He 
says: “The Roman church has the right to interfere in the discipline of 
the public schools and in the choice of teachers in these public schools. 
Public schools open to all children, for the education of the young should 
be under the control of the Roman church and should not be subject to 
the civil power.” Mark the pope says the Catholic church has the right 
to interfere “with the public schools” — a “right” which, as I shall show 
you, that church is usurping here in Dubuque county, and in Jackson 
county joining us on the south, as it has been doing for years, with the 
most open effrontery, in violation of the constitutional rights of Ameri- 
can citizens. I have told you just where you can find these words of the 
pope— the highest Catholic authority, and I shall now show you that the 
words of the pope, uttered away yonder by the Tiber, are operative right 
here in Iowa. I shall show that it is no vain thing when the pope 
claims from American subjects an allegiance greater than that which 
they owe to our constitution. Right here in Dubuque county there are 
Catholic officers of public schools, members of school boards— who are 
violating the constitution in obedience to the pope. For years this thing 
has been going on with impunity, no man lifting a voice against it. In 


A CATHOLIC CENTER 


37 


the growing boldness of declared intentions on the part of the hierarchy, 
we are compelled to interpret the threat to “break down” or “interfere 
with” our public schools in the light of events which are right at our 
doors. The things to which I refer are not openly done in this City, but 
in the country places about here. There is here, however, one of the 
strongest centers of Catholic influence, to be found in this country. The 
bishop’s residence is here. Here are six Catholic churches, four of them 
very large and having fine buildings; there are, I believe, six parochial 
schools, four higher Catholic institutions of learning, one hospital and 
one orphanage which also has its school. A very large building is now 
under contract to be built this summer as a “mother-house.” Supporting 
these institutions there is a local Catholic population amounting to near- 
ly or not quite one-half of the inhabitants of this City. Probably there 
are fifteen thousand Catholics in Dubuque. In the neighborhood of 
the City there are convents and a monastery and the population of the 
county outside the city is strongly, but by no means exclusively, Catho- 
lic. It will be seen at once that here are conditions which offer peculiar 
opportunities for observing what the Romish hierarchy mean by their ut- 
terances. It is in such a field as this that we must expect to find the 
first clear interpretation of speech, by action. If we hear the pope say- 
ing “the Roman church has the right to interfere in the discipline of the 
public schools and in the choice of teachers in these public schools,” and 
should find that, in a strong Catholic community like this, the authori- 
ties of that church did not so interfere, then we should conclude that 
the pope's encyclicals contain nothing for Americans to be afraid of. 
We should smile when he fulminates and, smiling still, pass on our way. 
But if, on the contrary, we here find priests and nuns “interfering witli 
the public schools” and manipulating the appointment of teachers, and 
actually teaching the Catholic catechism in public schools, we shall con- 
clude that these counties of Dubuque and Jackson furnish a fair illustra- 
tion of the pope’s power over his American subordinates — a fair illus- 
tration of what will be done in other places as soon as growing power 
permits. 

In giving the following facts, permit me to say, I have found only 
what any citizen may find upon investigation. And since these are pub- 
lic schools, supported by public money, the public has a right to all of 
the facts concerning them. It is the right of any citizen to visit them 
and doubtless any who go will be treated courteously as I have every- 
where been. It would not be very strange, however, if the present dis- 
cussion and publicity should lead to an immediate change in reference to 
the cathechism in school hours, for these teachers and school boards 
must all know that the present practice of many schools will not bear 




38 


SCHOOL IN A NUNNERY. 


the searching investigation which is sure to follow. Now for some facts 
about Jackson county: 

A number of years ago a public school building was erected on Cath- 
olic land then held by Bishop Smythe in Prairie Spring township, next to 
the Catholic church. In subsequent years, as was affirmed by one who 
was then a member of the school board, the Catholic authorities exer- 
cised such a controlling influence in the appointment of the teachers as 
to lead to a serious protest from one member of the board — himself a 
good Catholic. A law suit was at one time imminent, but the disaffect- 
ed official moved away and the matter was dropped. How far the form- 
er state of things exists now I cannot say. But the “public school” 
still continues in that building, next to the Catholic church, not quite 
four miles north of LaMotte on the old Dubuque and Davenport road. 
There is another district school two miles nearer LaMotte, and when, in 
company with a friend, I was in that district, very recently, both of those 
schools were having a week’s vacation, in term time, in order that the 
teachers and children might attend a Catholic “Mission” which two 
priests from Chicago were conducting in the adjacent church. Suppose 
that two public schools should be dismissed a week to accommodate a 
Protestant revival. Wouldn’t the world hear from Rome on that sub- 
ject? We learned the recent facts from a prominent Catholic family of 
the neighborhood. 

At Tete DeMorte, four miles west of Gordon's Ferry, a state of 
things exists to which it may well be doubted whether a parallel can be 
found in the land. The little village of eighteen or twenty houses and 
two or three stores, is located in a charming valley, surrounded by pic- 
turesque hills and bluffs, has a Catholic church of considerable size, and 
a large four story nunnery, separated from the church by a little ravine 
but no fence. The Catholic emblem is on a little building at the gate, 
and conspicuously displayed on a little chapel which crowns the hill just 
back of the nunnery. In the cemetery by the church, there is a life-size 
image of Christ on the cross. All of these surroundings would be proper 
enough for a Catholic church or nunnery; but the astonishing fact is that 
the public school of Tete deMorte (District No. 2) is in that nunnery and 
is taught by “the Sisters” as we learned from one of their number during 
a recent visit there, It goes without saying that the Romish religion is 
taught there in school hours. This state of things lias existed for years. 

At District No. 3 two or three miles nearer Bellevue, on the direct 
road, school was dismissed, but we learned from a neighboring farmer, 
who sends five of his seven children to the school, that the teacher’s name 
is Henry Fischer. He further told us, in a matter-of-course manner, that 
the cathechism is taught there. 


A PRIEST IN A PUBLIC SCHOOL. 


39 


Three miles north of Bellevue is Spruce Creek district school. It 
was taught by the son of a gentleman in Bellevue, whose name I have, 
but am not permitted to mention. While he taught it the parish priest 
came regularly and drilled the children in the catechism. There are 
equally interesting facts at Spring Brook, ten miles south of Bellevue, 
the particulars of which I will not give, as I was unable personally to 
visit the public school there. A most careful and intelligent gentleman 
says in a note to me: “I think that the payment of public money to teach- 
ers selected by the priests prevails in Otter Creek and Butler townships 
also.” I have now given you the results and extent of my investigation 
of the facts in Jackson county. After such an experience one is 
prepared to believe the remark of a certain gentleman that the Catho- 
lics control a large share of the public schools of Jackson county and 
that in them the catechism is taught. 

We come now to Dubuque county. As nearly as I can learn the 
same state of things exists today at Holy Cross. It certainly did a few 
years ago. The public school was taught by u tlie sisters.” Report 
reaches me of several other schools, which are largely controlled by 
Catholic influence, in which the catechism is taught and the like, but I 
refrain from mentioning names until I can ' further investigate. From 
facts which I shall mention presently, it will be seen that I have no reas- 
on to doubt the substantial correctness of the report. With one except- 
ion every such report which I have investigated has proved correct. 

Two young ladies, one living now in this city, the other teaching in 
an adjoining county, both Protestants, give me interesting information 
connected with their attempts to find employment as teachers in this 
county. One of them had nearly succeeded as she supposed in making a 
contract when she was asked by the board if she would teach the Catho- 
lic catechism. She told them she would not and that ended the negoti- 
ations. The other made application in three different districts of Du- 
buque county. In every way she gave satisfactory evidence of her abili- 
ty to teach. That was not questioned. But in every case she was met 
by the question, “Will you teach the Catholic catechism?” She finally 
concluded that there was no place for her in the district schools around 
Dubuque, and found work in a neighboring county. The young ladies 
are naturally averse to any publicity; but the proof is ready if properly 
called for. 

Such things as I have now narrated I had been hearing for several 
years in one form and another, usually in the way of incidental reference 
in conversation, as if to facts well known and accepted. But it seemed 
to me incredible that they could be true, to any such extent as was im- 
plied. Inquiry has taught me that the reports were entirely credible. 


40 


HEARD THE CATECHISM. 


In company with my wife I recently visited the schools of New Mal- 
lory (Dist. No. 5) and Prairie Creek (Dist. No. 4.) These schools are 
twelve and fourteen miles, respectively, from Dubuque, southwest. The 
first is taught by Miss Celia Rooney, who informed us that she has been 
its teacher for ten years. She made us very welcome, the more so per- 
haps, because, as she told us, visitors are very few. In response to our 
inquiries she freely and courteously told us that the last recitation of 
each day was in the Catholic catechism and produced a copy of the text 
book. The title page reads, “The most Reverend Doctor James Butler’s 
Catechism, Revised, Enlarged, Improved, and Recommended by the four 
R. C. Archbishops of Ireland as a General Catechism, by the Rt. Rev. 
Dr. Milner.” The 3rd page has The Angelic Salutation “Hail Mary, 
full of grace, the Lord is with thee * * * Holy Mary, Mother of God, 
pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death, Amen.” A part 
of the school books in use here are also standard Catholic publications. 
O'Shea’s readers are used. The preface of the first reader of that series, 
speaks of the adaptability of the Catholic faith to the child mind. Just 
how extensively Roman Catholic text books are in use in these two 
counties, I cannot say, but I am of the opinion that they are quite gener- 
ally used. With the facts I have given and which I am about to give, it 
would be very strange if they were not. 

District school No. 4, of Dubuque county, is taught by Miss Mc- 
Carthy. We reached it in time to see the children having their after- 
noon recess, and heard the recitation in the catechism immediately fol- 
lowing. It was at the regular hour for that recitation and from 
the same text book as before mentioned— Dr. Butler's. 
This, as I learn, is the one commonly in use wherever the cate- 
chism is taught in this vicinity. It may interest this audience to hear 
some extracts from that catechism in which hundreds of public school 
children are being educated at public expense, in Dubuque and Jackson 
counties. In Lesson xxv “On Confirmation,” we read: 

Q. What is confirmation? 

A. A sacrament which makes us strong and perfect Christians. 

Q. How does the Bishop give Confirmation? 

A. By the imposition of hands and by prayer; that is he holds out 
his hands and prays at the same time, that the Holy Ghost may descend 
upon those who are to be confirmed, and then he makes the sign of the 
cross on their foreheads with chrism. 

Q. Why does the Bishop give the persons he confirms a stroke on 
the cheek? 

A. To put them in mind, that by confirmation they are strength- 
ened even if necessary to die for Christ. 


“INDULGENCES” TAUGHT IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS. 41 


Q. Is it a sin to neglect Confirmation? 

A. Yes; especially in these evil days, when faith and morals are ex- 
posed to so many, and such violent temptations. 

The following from lessons X and XI on “the true church” is inter- 
resting to Protestant residents of the districts where this catechism is 
taught: 

Q. How do you call the true church? 

A. The Holy Catholic church. 

Q. Is there any other true church besides the Holy Catholic church? 

A. No; as there is but one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God, 
one Father of all; there is but one true church. 

Q. Are all obliged to be of the true church? 

A. Yes. 9 

Q. Why do we call the church Roman? 

A. Because the visible head of the church is the Bishop of Rome. 

Q. Who is the visible head of the church? 

A. The pope, who is Christ’s vicar on earth and supreme visible 
head of the church. 

Q. Can the church err in what it teaches? 

A. No; because Christ promised to the pastors of his church. Be- 
hold I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the world. 
(Less. XI) 

Such is the teaching on the pope and the church. The world has 
heard a great deal lately about what the history, taught in the Boston 
schools, has to say on “Indulgences.” 

Let us see what is being taught to the children of Dubuque and 
Jackson counties, from the Roman catechism itself, on this interesting 
subject. It will be found in lesson XXVIII. 

Q. Will the penance, enjoined in confession, always satisfy for our 
sins? 

A. No; but whatever is wanting may be supplied by indulgences 
and our own penitential endeavors. 

Q. What does the church teach concerning indulgences? 

A. That Christ gave power to the church to grant indulgences and 
that they are most useful to Christian people. 

Q. What is the effect of an indulgence? 

A. It releases from canonical penance, enjoined by the church on 
penitents for certain sins. 

Q. Has an indulgence any other effect? 

A. It also remits the temporary punishment with which God often 
visits our sins; and which must be suffered in this life or the next, unless 
cancelled by indulgence, by act of penance, or other good works. 


42 


CATECHISM YS. SWINTON. 


Q. Has the church power to grant such indulgence? 

A. Yes. 

After which we may fairly ask, What has any school history ever 
said on the subject which can place it in a worse light, than this authori- 
ty of the Romish church, which is a text book in many schools of these 
two counties — this book from which I have heard scholars reciting in a 
Dubuque County district school? Later in the lesson we are told that 
an indulgence is not a license to commit sin, but notice the wording of 
this: “Answer: Nor can it remit past sin, for sin must be remitted by 
penance as to the guilt of it * * before an indulgence can be granted. ” 
Bear in mind that, under the Catholic system, the priest has power to 
remit sins and the whole is plain. He who desires an indulgence does an 
“alms-deed” and gets first his remission pf sin, then his “indulgence.” 
And this which I have quoted from the lesson on “Indulgences,” is what 
is taught to public school scholars in our own county under direction of 
the authorities of that church which, in Boston, made such an outcry 
about the mild statement in Swin ton’s History! 

There is much more which is very interesting in this little book. 
You can buy it for five cents a copy, at one book store certainly, probably 
at all in this city. Buy it and read it through that you may see what is 
being taught in our district schools. 

About two miles beyond the school house of Dist. No. 4 is that of 
the adjoining district taught by Miss Callahan. Owing to the lateness 
of the hour we did not visit it; but we were told by the teachers of the 
two schools in its immediate neighborhood that the cathecism is taught 
there also. 

At Key West a little village only three miles from this City, the 
public school is in the same yard and almost under the eaves of the 
Catholic church. In company with a friend, I called there on a school 
day and at a school hour, but found the school room empty. The nun 
who came in response to the door bell at the house next the church on 
the other side, said that this was the District school, supported by public 
money; that “the sisters” taught it; that they taught religion (in res- 
ponse to the question, Is the cathechism taught?) She further said in 
answering my question concerning the empty school room, that the 
children had “gone riding with the sisters to a convent.” As w r e wefe 
about to leave, she added that “the religious instruction is given after 
school hours.” I will not say what is done this week, or what was done 
last week; but there is a former Protestant pupil of that school, in this 
City, who heard lessons regularly given in the catechism during school 
hours, through the entire period of his attendence there. The change 
therefore must be very recent if “the sister” was right in saying that re- 


A PRIEST WITH HIS WHIP! 


43 


ligious instruction is after school hours. Some of it is doubtless after 
school hours and some is not. 

The Wilton school near Asbury three miles from here, thanks to the 
courage of one man who dared to stand for American rights, is now free 
from priestly domination and the catechism. But for years that school 
was virtually under the control, of the priest. He ordered it removed 
from its lawful building to another, which was done. He then intro- 
duced the catechism and personally heard recitations in it during school 
hours. On one occasion at the close of an exhibition, when the building 
was crowded, he produced a heavy whip, handed it to the teacher and 
directed the whipping of fourteen children, telling the teacher to “lay it 
on'’ which she was in no wise loth to do. The matter was notorious at 
the time, but with the successful removal of the school back to its own 
building, these things done in a public school passed out of sight. 

Such are a few of the facts relating to Catholic control of our public 
schools in two counties of this great State of Iowa. From other reports 
to all appearances as reliable as those which I have found correct by per- 
sonal investigation, I am persuaded that these facts are but a small part 
of the whole truth in either Dubuque or Jackson counties. One gentle- 
man affirms that there are fifteen schools in Jackson county where the 
Roman catechism is taught. I only know that so far as I have investi- 
gated his statements they have proven correct. 

We shall be met by the statement that in these districts the popu- 
lation is largely Catholic; we shall be told that it is their own choice to 
have the catechism. But all of that does not count, even if every person 
were a Catholic. That is far from being the case. There are Protes- 
tants in these districts who feel deeply the outrage which is done them 
when they are compelled to send their children to schools where they 
must hear the Romish catechism and in some cases learn from Catholic 
text books. Further the evidence is clear that the catechism is thrust 
into the schools, not by vote of the directors, but by the interference of the 
priests. Moreover we could not admit the argument for such a use of 
public money if every person in these districts were a Catholic. Could 
we permit a colony of Russians to introduce Russian despotism or 
Nihilism into the public schools because every person in the district 
might chance to be a Russian? The money collected by tax from Cath- 
olics is just as much the property of the state as that collected from any 
other body of the people, and can no more be perverted than any other 
tax money. We shall be told, also, that there are places where the 
Bible* is read in the schools and that this is offensive to the Catholics. 
The cases are not in the least parallel. The Bible does not teach odedi- 
ence to a foreign power, nor the supremacy of a single church. 


44 


NOTABLE “ALARMISTS. ” 


I have presented these facts in the exercise of the rights of an Ameri- 
can freeman fully believing that the time has come when, throughout this 
land such facts must come to the bar of public opinion. These things are 
being done, within the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of Bishop Hennessey. 
It is absolutely impossible that he should be ignorant of them. Priests 
and nuns do not methodically, over a considerable territory, interfere 
with schools and instruction without the knowledge and will of their 
superior. Without ill will to any person, therefore, I say that Bishop Hen- 
nessey and I must go together to the bar of public sentiment on these facts 
— he as being largely responsible for them; I for bringing them before the 
public. But it may as well be understood that judgment upon them will 
not be confined to the counties where these facts exist 
and where the will of Bishop Hennessey is so potent. These 
facts will go to the wider jury, which is now sitting on the evidence of 
Catholic interference with our American free schools, to that jury of the 
people, which may be slow in getting at the facts and slow in awaking to 
danger, but whose verdict is always on the side of freedom— free speech, 
free religious rights and free schools. This I say fully prepared to bear 
my responsibility for the course I have pursued, believing that a presen- 
tation of such facts will commend itself to the people, who. must know 
what is going on, in order to act intelligently. The issue is here. We 
must prepare ourselves to meet it. It will do us no good to close our 
eyes and cry “peace” while bishops and priests with open eyes and hands 
are seizing one after another of our public schools and perverting them 
to the purposes of Romanism. These things I say also fully knowing 
that many good citizens who are Catholics will condemn such proceed- 
ings of the hierarchy when their attention is called to them. There are 
multitudes who, like Patrick Gaffney formerly of LaMott, love the 
public schools and are unwilling that priests and bishops should inter- 
fere with them. They want the free schools, unperverted, for them- 
selves and for others. 

Those who lift their voices, as I am now doing, against wrongs which 
have been permitted for years to go on and increase in silence, are some- 
times called “alarmists.” President Grant was an “alarmist” then. He 
saw the tendency of these things as long ago as 1876, when he said 
at Des Moines in our own State: “If we are to have 

another contest, in the. near future of our national existence, I predict 
that the dividing line will not be Mason's and Dixon’s; but it will be be- 
tween patriotism and intelligence on one side and superstition, ambition 
and ignorance on the other. * * * Encourage free schools, and re- 
solve that not one dollar appropriated to them shall be applied to the 
support of any sectarian school; resolve that any child in the land may 


THE NATIONAL LEAGUE. 


45 


get a common school education, unmixed with atheistic, pagan or sec- 
tarian teachings: Keep the church and state forever seperate. ” (Speech 
before Army of Tennessee, 1876.) It was he who first proposed a con- 
stitutional amendment, directly forbidding such abuses as we have ex- 
amined this evening. President Garfield, whose monument has just 
been dedicated, was also “alarmed” when he wrote in his letter of ac- 
ceptance July 12, 1880: “It would be dangerous to our institutions to 
apply any portion of the revenue of the Nation or of the state to the 
support of sectarian schools.” Lafayette, that noble spirited son of 
France, himself a Romanist, was “alarmed” long years before either 
when he said: “If the liberties of the American people are ever de- 
stroyed they will fall by the hands of the Romish clergy.” (“Our Country” 
— p. 59.) 

More recently the alarm has rapidly spread. Boston and Milwaukee 
have been storm centers, but wise men throughout the land clearly see 
that this is no local issue. Only last week I received the first public 
document of the “National League for the Protection of American In- 
stitutions.” It was incorporated Dec. 14, 1889, by act of the New York 
Legislature, John Jay being the president. This first circular is signed 
by nearly 300 of the leading men of New York City and elsewhere, in- 
cluding such names as Abram S. Hewitt, Dorman B. Eaton, W. H. 
Draper, John H. Vincent, Samd. Cohen, and others, signifying their ap- 
proval of the League. The object of the League is “to secure constitu- 
tional and legislative safe guards for the protection of the common 
school system and other American institutions, and to prevent all sectar- 
ian appropriation of public funds.” 

This League is now moving for the identical amendment proposed by 
President Grant years ago. Are these men all “alarmists?” Or are they 
simply awaking to a great and widespread danger which threatens our 
public schools? This League asks for “any information or suggestions 
in regard to attempts to pervert the common school system.” This may 
be addressed to James M. King, Secretary, rooms 43 and 44 Morse build- 
ing, 140 Nassau street, New York City. 

With all good Americans it becomes us to hail this awakening of 
men who have the power to make themselves heard and felt at this great 
crisis. 

In the near future I may invite your attention to one or two addresses 
on “The Bible and the Public Schools,” discussing a feature of the theme 
which I have thus far omitted. In closing this series of addresses I wish 
to thank you for the interest and sympathy shown. I thank those 
Catholics who have in one way and another assured me of their agree- 
ment with the position here taken. I have sought to present the facts 


46 “WITH MALICE TOWARD NONET 


from undoubted authorities and from personal investigation. If any 
system on this free soil of America is hurt by the facts, then it is time 
that it was amended. “With malice toward none, with charity for all, 
with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right” we must fear- 
lessly and faithfully do our duty, to the end that a great crisis may be 
met and a great evil averted. 


*Althoug-h these addresses were published as they were delivered from week to 
week, no attempt h^s been made to deny or explain either the quotations from Catho- 
lic authorities or the astonishing- facts narrated in the fifth address. The only public 
reply has referred to the author’s supposed attitude in reference to the Bible in the 
schools, to which there is only one brief allusion in my addresses and that in these few 
lines. 






















I 



I 






t 


» 











. 

: 'V* 




























. 

- ■ - N . 











. 






- 











■ 





*v 



. 

• • ' X ^ V . 

* 








. 








t 































■ • 

t 















’ y 





o 019 889 099 6 


